


Eye of Newt

by Rod



Series: Amy the Vampire Slayer [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hollyoaks
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bratva (mentioned), Love Polygon of Undisclosed Order, M/M, Multi, POV Multiple, School Romances, Supernatural-style demons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-10-25 23:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 54,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: Frankie and Jack Osbourn's foster-son returns after some unfortunate events before Christmas.  He isn't impressed by what he finds.





	1. Back to School

**Author's Note:**

> Follows more or less straight on from Call Me Conrad.
> 
> The HP elements of this story are more or less just that Draco Malfoy is around (and sometimes the viewpoint character). If you want something focusing on Harry and his mates, this is not that story.
> 
> Hollyoaks fans may notice that I'm compressing time heavily (more or less folding two years together) and dropping a few characters (sorry Anita) for simplicity. The story is long enough without having to work them all in. Apologies if this offends any purists, but it made for a better story.
> 
> As with Hellyoaks itself, there is another fandom lurking in the undergrowth. Have fun sniffing it out.

Barry Newton was not impressed.

Newt had been sent away from the Osbourns before Christmas in disgrace, accused of stealing Frankie's jewellery. He had endured the festive season in a care home where things couldn't have been worse even if he'd stopped taking his medication. Now he was being welcomed back with frankly embarrassed apologies because it turned out Darren Osbourn was the culprit.

Darren, he noticed, wasn't being sent anywhere.

The Osbourn household had changed in the couple of weeks he'd been away. The Blessed Craig had returned for the holidays and claimed his old room back. Fortunately he had already gone back to Dublin, otherwise he and Newt would have fought over who got the bed. Frankie had said something about Craig getting married this summer. Newt hadn't cared enough to listen.

Frankie's oldest, Jake, was also back in the family home. Newt had only vaguely known the guy before. He had heard that Jake's wife had died leaving him with a baby, but that was about it. The boyfriend had been a surprise. Justin was a medical student or something; Frankie hadn't explained and obviously didn't like him, which Newt couldn't help but be intrigued by. He didn't seem to be thrown by Newt's lip ring either, and he was also almost young enough not to be terminally embarrassing to be seen with.

Newt nearly said as much to Lauren Valentine on their way into school. Fortunately what he actually did was ask if Lauren knew anything about the guy. And did she ever. Five minutes later Newt had the complete run-down on Justin Burton: how he'd slept with Jake's wife and then got her thrown in prison, how he'd worked for creepy Warren Fox and then mooched off the Valentines, and how he was now banging Jake Dean. Newt knew that last bit was true. He had the bedroom next door and they weren't quiet.

"It's almost impressive," he said, trying to figure out why Justin littered the place with medical text books if he wasn't a student after all.

"It's disgusting is what it is," Lauren said viciously. Newt looked at her, surprised. He hadn't expected her to be so anti-gay, not when the expectation that you were straight was such a big part of the pressure to conform that they both hated.

"I mean, he does all this shady stuff for Warren, then Calvin just lets him come and stay with us like it was nothing." Oh, that was alright then. Newt could go back to not caring what orientation people were. "He calls himself a policeman," Lauren continued, "but he's just a big hypocritical symbol of fascist oppression."

"I would pay money to be there when you tell him that," Newt said sincerely as they turned into the school gates. Lauren on a tear was a beautiful sight. OK, Newt reckoned Lauren in any mood was a beautiful sight, but there was something especially satisfying about watching her angrily take apart some deserving drone.

"You missed your chance," Lauren grumbled.

Newt would have asked for details but they were interrupted by raucous laughter. He looked up to see Gaz Bennet and his skinhead sidekicks standing in the way.

"Look guys," Gaz crowed, "it's the goth girls all dressed up and nowhere to go."

"Funny," Newt said flatly. He couldn't be bothered to deal with them today. He pushed his jet black hair out of his eyes and turned to go.

Lauren wasn't in a mood to take their crap, though. "It's 'emo', moron," she snapped. "I shouldn't be surprised that you haven't got the brains to remember that."

Newt held back as Gaz and Lauren got in each other's faces. He'd spotted Mr Roy, the headmaster, standing at the doors ready to jump on anyone who didn't look completely boring. He'd give them a detention as soon as look at them, and the fact that he'd give Gaz a detention too was no comfort. "Lauren," he hissed, trying to calm things down before the Wrath of Roy descended on them.

"What's going on here?" an adult voice behind him demanded. Newt turned to see Mr Townsend standing there. Not as bad as Mr Roy, but not good either. Mr Townsend didn't exactly like them, but he didn't take shit from anyone.

"Morning, sir," Newt said brightly, and plastered on a fake smile. No sense in letting any of the teachers think he liked them, except maybe Miss Hayton.

"Newt's wearing makeup, sir," Gaz said. His cronies laughed.

Mr Townsend sighed. "Wash it off, Barry," he said.

"It's only eyeliner," Newt protested. He really didn't get why teachers felt the need to stamp out every little bit of individuality in their pupils.

"It's against the rules," Mr Townsend said, trying to sound reasonable. The skinheads snickered again.

Lauren raised her head defiantly. "That's discrimination," she said loudly.

"Only if I don't tell you too," Mr Townsend replied, apparently giving up on being reasonable. "You aren't allowed cosmetics until Year 11. Wash it off before first period and I won't give you a detention."

"Dunno how you can tell on her skin," Gaz muttered loudly enough to hear. His gang laughed again. Lauren predictably took offence. Since no good could come from her punching Gaz's lights out in front of a teacher, Newt quickly held her back. Besides, her chocolate-coloured skin was beautiful, not something to be ashamed of.

"Gaz!" Mr Townsend snapped. Gaz stepped back hurriedly. "You two get inside," he told Newt and Lauren. He turned back to Gaz. "And you, you know better than that."

Newt pulled Lauren away before he could hear any more of the tongue-lashing Gaz was getting. It would have been great to listen to, but not getting a detention on the first day of school was more important. Not that he cared about the detention, but he'd learned to pick his battles.

"I could have taken him," Lauren muttered angrily.

"I believe you," Newt said with complete sincerity. "This time you didn't have to. Come on, we have to at least look like we washed before the bell. You know Mr Townsend will check."

All in all, he thought, it could have been a worse start to the year.

* * *

Myra McQueen finished dusting the statue of the Virgin Mary, stepped back with a bow, and glared at her sons. "Don't you have lectures to go to?"

John Paul attempted to look innocent as he lounged against the wall. "Nothing until noon," he said. "I'm here to help."

He was actually there under orders from Xander. He had moved out when brother Matthew had mentioned the spare room in his flat, because trying to get anything done with his sisters around was just impossible. When he had mentioned to the other druids that his mother was renting out his old room to the new parish priest, Xander had gone thoughtful. "It always pays to be on good terms with the local church," he had said. "You never know when you may need more holy water."

"You believe in that stuff?" John Paul had asked. He had stopped believing years ago, when the on-and-off nature of his mother's faith became clear. She may have named him after a pope, but she was only religious when it was convenient.

Xander had shrugged. "I know vampires can't approach crosses and holy water burns a lot of demons. I don't know whether the Christian Church has got anything else right, but they're on the right side. Making nice only makes sense."

It was a good point, John Paul had to admit. He was far from convinced that the Church had any useful answers, but politeness didn't hurt. It was also important to make a good impression before the new priest found out that they were druids, which was bound to go down badly. John Paul had no illusions about keeping that secret; Amy had told Michaela and much as John Paul loved his little sister, he knew full well she couldn't keep her mouth shut. So here he was, ready to smile and make himself useful in the name of not starting World War III.

Matthew, as Niall had decided he wanted to be known again, grinned up from his armchair as their mother switched her glare to him. "Carmel gave me the morning off," he said. "Something about reassuring the poor man he wasn't being left alone in a house full of beautiful women."

Their mother glared harder at the compliment, but before she could argue further the doorbell rang. "Best behaviour," she warned her sons as she bustled up to the door.

Father Kieron Hobbs was nothing like John Paul had imagined. He was young for one thing, in his late twenties at the most. John Paul had been prepared to make nice to some middle-aged duffer, and seeing someone nearer his own age threw him. He was good looking too. If John Paul wasn't engaged and Kieron wasn't a priest, well, that's what a healthy imagination was for. John Paul tried not to stare as his mother made the introductions, but he didn't think he succeeded.

"So is it just the three of you here?" Father Kieron asked, unwinding his scarf.

Matthew chuckled. "We don't actually live here," he explained. "In fact you're moving into John Paul's old room."

John Paul nodded. "I have five sisters," he said. "Getting any coursework done was basically impossible." He hadn't even contemplated trying out anything druidical at home; he could just imagine the uproar if his mother found out.

" _Five_ sisters?" Kieron said, eyes wide. "That's quite a big family these days." The 'even for Catholics' was implicit. John Paul and Matthew exchanged mirthful glances and left that one to their mother.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," she said. "Most of them have all but moved in with their boyfriends. Not that there's any funny business going on," she added hurriedly, apparently remembering who she was talking to.

"Of course not," Father Kieron assured her. He didn't look like he believed a word of it, but he seemed more amused than appalled.

"You don't want to believe all the gossip you hear," Myra tried.

His mother was her own worse enemy sometimes, John Paul reflected. "Talking of gossip," he said before she could actually scare her new lodger away, "you should probably know that Matthew's famous for being the long lost brother I didn't know I had until Christmas. Oh, and I'm marrying my boyfriend this June."

He had meant to toss that last bit out casually, but it came out as more of a challenge. The church wasn't exactly noted for being supportive of homosexuality, and John Paul wanted to know if he was facing a stereotypically homophobic priest. Given that all the druids were gay or bisexual, that could be a big problem.

Kieron grinned, clapped John Paul on the shoulder and said, "Congratulations twice over, then." He turned to Matthew. "Long lost brother? How did that happen?"

"I'm not really sure," Matthew said. "I grew up in the care system with not much idea who my real parents were. All I know for certain is that Myra — Mum invited me round for Christmas dinner and John Paul declared I was his brother. All the information fits, but I still have no idea how you found out."

"I have my sources," John Paul said, trying to look wise. He could hardly tell a priest that an unintentional pagan ritual had shown it to him. Even if that priest had just accepted John Paul being gay without blinking. "Really, it was mostly an accident."

"A small miracle, maybe," Kieron offered, grinning easily. John Paul looked at him quizzically. "People always think miracles have to be big flashy things, but small events can have just as big an impact. I believe God still works miracles in the world, and most of them are happy accidents like that."

John Paul had to stop and think about that. It was hardly proof of anything, of course, but there had been an awful lot of coincidences in his life lately. Everything from becoming a druid to Conrad's schoolmates just happening to show up in the Grove when he was there, all of it came down to particular people being in particular places at particular times.

"The still, small voice of calm?" Matthew asked. Kieron beamed. Matthew looked thoughtful.

"Well," their mother said, "since we just happen to have two strong young men here, we might as well make use of them. Boys, why don't you take Father Kieron's bags up to him room while I make us all a cuppa."

"Please, just call me Kieron. There's no need to be formal in your own home."

"Of course, Father."

John Paul grinned as he grabbed a suitcase and headed upstairs. His mother had such weird priorities sometimes. She would cheerfully feed Kieron food bought with a five-fingered discount, but she thought not using the man's title was rude.

Not that that would stop Kieron trying, he thought.


	2. Back to School 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander buys a house. Josh is not a Scooby.

Xander looked up at the house and smiled. It needed some work, but it had all the features he needed for a Watchers' outpost. It was well separated from nosy neighbours, had enough space for a decent library and training facilities, and was handy for the druid's grove. And it was all his.

"It's... big," Jake said doubtfully.

"It's got to fit Josh and Ste, me and Andrew, a couple of Slayers and a guest room or two," Xander pointed out. He wouldn't be surprised if Jake, Justin, John Paul and Craig moved in eventually, though he wasn't going to say that to their faces.

"It's falling down," Justin said with some alarm.

"Nah," Xander said easily. "Give me a crew and a couple of weeks and it'll be good as new." He was confident of that. Granted the building didn't look great, and Ste had made much of that beating the realtor's price down, but at its core it was sound. A little TLC — OK, a lot of TLC — was all it really needed, and Xander knew that was well within his capabilities.

"It's beautiful," Andrew breathed. Xander tried hard not to blush. He knew Andrew well enough to know what his partner was really saying, and that much faith and love? No, Andrew was the beautiful one.

"So," he said, cleared his throat and tried again. "Welcome to Grove House."

"Nice," Jake said, still sounding more bemused than anything. "You've got a lot of work ahead of you."

"Yeah, that's kind of why I need your help," Xander admitted. He gestured to the acre of land the house came with, which didn't look nearly as big as it had seemed on paper. "Getting a work crew in here with the ground so wet is going to make a hell of a mess. Besides..." He trailed off, letting the bramble-infested land speak for itself. "I hear you're the guy to go to for landscaping."

Jake's eyes bugged out. "I'm just a gardener," he said anxiously. "I don't know the first thing about landscaping or design. I just cut the grass and plant the flowers where I'm told."

"I just plastered the walls and hammered in nails where I was told until my boss promoted me," Xander argued. "Consider this your promotion."

"But I don't know what to do!"

"Try stuff out, see what works," Xander told him. "Don't worry about making mistakes, I put plenty of contingency in the budget." And didn't he sound the adult, throwing words like 'contingency' around? Accurately, even. Willow would be proud.

"What is the budget?" Justin asked. Xander named a figure. Jake's eyes bugged out again.

"That's too much," he protested.

"So don't spend it all," Xander replied. "Believe me, it'll disappear fast enough when you start hiring workers."

"You can do this, Jake," Justin told his partner, just as Xander had hoped. "You're always telling me that I'm better than I think I am with healing, now it's my turn. I know you, Jake, and this? This'll be easy. You know plants, you know what they need, heck your father even taught you about this stuff. You can do it with your eyes closed."

Jake looked kind of overwhelmed. "Help?" he asked Justin eventually.

"Always." Justin's grin grew more self-deprecatory. "For what little it's worth this time."

"It's worth a lot," Jake told him.

"Go," Xander said, flapping his hands at them in dismissal before they could distract themselves with kissing. "Get a feel for the place, or whatever it is you plant people do. I need to make sure I haven't missed anything major before the crew arrives tomorrow."

They parted ways, Jake and Justin wandering off into the long grass while Xander and Andrew headed inside. "That was a good thing you did," Andrew said once they were well out of earshot.

"What?" Xander asked absently, checking over one of the load-bearing walls.

"Giving Jake a chance to unlock his full potential."

Xander pulled his attention abruptly back to the conversation at hand. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he tried, though not with much hope. Andrew was very insightful on the subject of Xanders these days, the same way Xander knew Andrew's moods inside out.

Andrew smiled gently. "So it's a complete coincidence that you bought a house that needed exactly the sort of work Jake can do and will need to come back to from time to time? Rather than, say, that house on Mercer's Row?"

"That place was pokey," Xander protested. "Yeah, we could all have fitted just about, but the garden was a pocket handkerchief. The girls would never have had room to exercise." A few Slayer Houses worked that way, but they were basically nothing more than lodgings for itinerant Slayers.

"Total coincidence." Andrew nodded, warmly disbelieving. Correctly, damn it.

"Don't think I haven't noticed you doing the same for Ste," Xander replied.

Andrew sniffed. "He has an innate understanding of food," he said. "I am merely encouraging him to use it."

"There's encouraging," Xander told him, "and there's filling in job applications for him. For jobs you are better qualified for."

"Italian food is not really my oeuvre," Andrew said dismissively, tacitly admitting that he had enrolled Ste as a part-time chef at _Il Gnosh._ "Besides, I shall have my hands full assisting Miss Barnes in carrying out her sacred duty."

"She tagged you for baby-sitting, huh?"

"Thus affording me the opportunity to prepare meals suited to her metabolism rather than her finances," Andrew replied smoothly. That was the sort of sneakiness Xander approved of, and if anyone knew how to feed Slayers it was Andrew.

A related thought occurred to him. "We're going to have to do something about homeschooling Mark, aren't we?" he asked.

Andrew looked puzzled. "I didn't think it was that hard to introduce a child part way through the school year," he said.

"There's no way he's ready for other kids yet," Xander protested. "He still doesn't really get that a nine year old talking knowledgeably about sex weirds people out. Hell, it weirds me out, and I dated Anya. Plus he's bound to be behind the class, and that's pretty much social death. We have to catch him up somehow."

"Miss Barnes is doing her best," Andrew protested.

"Amy has her own schoolwork to think about," Xander countered. He didn't bother trying any harder to get Andrew to call Amy by her first name. He had long since lost that battle. "As her Watchers, it's our job to help out. Trouble is, neither of us are exactly shining products of the education system."

Andrew looked a little affronted at that, but outside of the obscure lore he had mastered and the rest of the world didn't know existed it was undeniably true. "We are only talking about primary schooling," Andrew said after a moment. "How h—"

"Ah," Xander said quickly, holding up a finger. "Do not jinx us on this. Not when we have even less idea of what we're doing than with magic."

Andrew considered that, and sighed in reluctant agreement. "We need advice," he admitted. "Perhaps the others could suggest people we could approach?"

"Maybe." Better to ask around locally, Xander thought. He didn't really want to ask Giles about this sort of thing. The Chief Watcher would laugh and make totally unnecessary comments about karma at every opportunity. "Whatever, it's time we go back out and see if Jake has talked himself into this yet."

They meandered back out, in no particular hurry for once. On impulse Xander linked his arm with Andrew's, earning himself a smile he couldn't help returning. Outside, Justin was standing to one side, watching with his own small smile as a frowning Jake scribbled in a notepad.

"How's it going?" Xander asked.

Jake scowled at him. "The roses I understand," he said, "but why do I want to put beans here?"

* * *

Josh and Amy turned into the school gates still chatting easily. It was good to have Josh back as a friend, Amy thought, without all the complications of being in a relationship with him or him being jealous of her relationship. Granted, Josh and Ste being a thing still felt weird to her, but it gave her Josh back, so Amy was choosing to count it a win.

"Hey, Fred and Daphne, wait up!" Michaela hurried up to join them with her customary lack of tact. Amy just rolled her eyes at her friend, but Josh scowled at her.

"Don't call us that," he grumbled.

"Not subtle enough for you?" Michaela shot back, predictably not sounding the slightest bit apologetic.

Josh shook his head. "Harris and his friends were the Scooby Gang when they were in school," he said. Amy vaguely remembered Mr Harris saying something like that, obviously when she hadn't been paying much attention. "We can't call ourselves that."

"So not original enough then."

Josh scowled at Michaela again. "Diplomacy is a foreign word to you," he said.

Michaela was clearly all set to continue Josh-baiting, but the headmaster chose that moment to come and loom over them. "Miss McQueen, Mr Ashworth," he said nodding gravely to each of them. "Miss Barnes, I hope you will be able to devote more time to your studies this term."

Amy had been expecting something like this. There had been more than a few occasions last term when she had to take Leah for an hour or two while Ste was busy. Her teachers had generally been understanding, but the headmaster had made it clear that it had to stop. "It's all sorted, Mr Roy," she said with a smile. "We've got babysitters organised."

"Your boyfriend was supposed to be doing that for you last year," Mr Roy said. He didn't sound convinced.

"Actually he's doing this morning," Amy said, her smile a bit more fixed.

"Except he's not her boyfriend any more," Michaela chipped in, "he's Josh's."

"Mics!" Josh hissed, blushing furiously.

"The important thing," Amy said before either of them could 'help' again, "is that we have a babysitting rota and several people willing to help. In an emergency my boyfriend — my _current_ boyfriend — can cover." Draco had offered to be part of the rota, but everyone agreed that helping to repair Hogwarts was a better use of his time. He could apparate home whenever he was needed, and since Mr Harris had got him a magic-hardened phone as a belated Christmas present, it was easy to get hold of him.

Mr Roy actually smiled. "Very good," he said approvingly. "A little organisation and it all becomes much easier. You'll find much the same applies to your school work," he added, looking significantly at Josh and Michaela.

Josh tapped his backpack and smiled. "Don't worry, sir. A friend of ours has already been on at me to do a revision timetable." In fact Hermione had badgered them both until they had given in and outlined what they would need to revise. Ron had muttered something about colour-coding and fled.

As Michaela said something sarcastic to Josh, it occurred to Amy that she had an ideal chance to ask for professional advise about Mark. "Actually sir," she said, "I was wondering if I could ask you something?" Mr Roy raised an eyebrow, but didn't say no. Amy considered very carefully what she could and couldn't say. Mr Roy was not going to be impressed that she had sort-of adopted another problem child. "Some friends of mine have taken in a nine-year old," she tried instead, "but he's got some serious problems."

"Severe socialisation issues," Josh offered, which was pretty much exactly how Mr Wells had described the situation. Amy went with Mr Harris's explanation, only translated into English.

"Basically he was raised in isolation and he's got no idea of anything outside what he was trained for," she said. "He's literally never seen anyone nearer his own age than us. We're all helping to get him used to the real world," in all its supernatural glory, "but there's no way he's ready for school."

"Or vice-versa," Michaela muttered.

Mr Roy chose to ignore that comment. "Your friends will be homeschooling him, then?" he asked.

"Which is not something they've got any experience at," Josh put in. Which was true even if her Watchers did help, Amy thought. Mr Harris put himself down enough that he'd freak out about teaching, and Mr Wells would be kind of random.

"Any advice would be extremely welcome," she said sincerely.

"It's hardly my area of expertise," Mr Roy said pensively, "but I'm sure there will be resources available. I'll see what I can find. In the mean time," he checked his watch, "you have five minutes to get to your classes. Run along now."

They ran along, thanking him as they went. "That was a good idea," Josh said once they were well out of earshot. "Makes us look very responsible."

Amy looked askance at him; Josh had a bad habit of trying to be responsible for everything. Ste had calmed him down, but the comment was still a bit rich. "It's not like that matters much any more," she sighed. She was a Slayer and a mother now, and that wasn't going to leave time for a career.

It was Josh's turn to look askance at her. "It's probably still going to be the most interesting thing to happen all day," he said.

"Oh, I don't know," Michaela said distractedly. She was looking at one of the younger boys, Amy didn't know his name, a skinhead with a very conflicted expression on his face. He in turn was staring at — was that Sasha's half-sister? Her or the black-haired boy she was walking with. Whatever that expression meant, Amy couldn't see it ending well.

"Very Romeo and Juliet," Josh said, ever the romantic.

"You do know that's a tragedy, right?" Sasha Valentine said, joining them as they went inside. "What are we talking about?" Fletch rolled up beside her, nodding at them in greeting.

"Nothing much," Amy said easily.

"And where were you when we were being lectured?" Michaela demanded. Josh and Amy both rolled their eyes.

"Keeping an eye on my little sister," Sasha said with absolutely no sign of guilt. "Calvin is convinced that there's something up with that friend of hers."

"Overprotective older brother?" Josh asked sympathetically. Rhys could be just as bad sometimes, Amy knew, which in his case was downright hypocritical.

"Also creepy eyeliner-wearing boyfriend," Sasha said with a grimace. "Hey Lauren! Lauren! Wait up." Then she was off again, hurrying to catch up with her sister.

"And you thought today was going to be boring," Michaela said to Josh.

"Today has school in it," Fletch said. "Of course it's going to be boring."

Amy could feel a headache coming on. Mr Harris was right, she decided. School was hell.


	3. Friends Old and New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt meets an old friend. Amy meets a new friend.

"Hello Newt," Frankie called from by the sink where she was washing up. "How was school?"

Newt grunted. That was about all the answer he reckoned she expected. It wasn't like she actually cared what his day had been like, it was just another stupid social convention. He waved vaguely at Justin, who waved back without actually looking up from his book, which pretty much said it all.

"Did anyone try anything funny about what happened at Christmas?" Frankie asked hesitantly. That got Justin to look up, which was weird. It was Frankie's precious reputation that deserved tarnishing, not his.

"They were all regular rays of sunshine," Newt said, giving her his blandest smile. Let her worry about what that meant for a bit. It wasn't like anybody cared, apart from Lauren. "I'm going to my room now."

Newt shoved his door shut behind him and face-planted on his bed. He spent all his time at school dealing with the drones, then coming back here and doing exactly the same? Not fun at all. At least here he had some freedom to relax and put on some music that would speak to his soul.

"Wow, like that after your first day back? I knew school was bad for you."

"Eli!" Newt just remembered in time to keep his voice down. Frankie hadn't mentioned a visitor, which probably meant his best friend had snuck in without any of the adults noticing. He was good at that.

"Hi, Newt. How've you been?" Eli pushed away from the wall where he'd been lounging, hands still stuck in his pockets.

"I've been missing my best friend," Newt said, sitting up on his bed. There was plenty of room for Eli to sit beside him, so of course Eli took the chair. "Where have you been, you idiot? You said something about joining the army?" Yeah, it was the army Eli had been talking about last time Newt had seen him, longer ago than he cared to remember.

"Something like that," Eli said easily. "Probably best if you don't mention seeing me. I didn't exactly ask before coming to visit."

"Well it looks good on you," Newt told him. It was no lie. Eli was still the same rangy, scruffy, unique individual that he'd always been. The army hadn't managed to stamp that out of him.

"Enough about me," Eli said, though he looked pleased enough at the compliment. "What's all this I hear about you having a girlfriend?"

"Lauren," Newt confirmed. "She's amazing." He lay back on his bed as he extolled her virtues. How fearless she was, not taking shit from anybody but forging her own path. No one could make her do anything she didn't want to. She was maybe the most beautiful person Newt had ever met. They were soulmates, he was sure of it. "There's a real connection between us," he finished.

Eli raised his eyebrows. "Has she made a man out of you yet?" he asked.

"Eli!" Newt spluttered. Before he could explain that their love wasn't like that, at least not yet, there was a knock at the door. Eli was on his feet instantly, quickly moving to where he would be hidden if anyone opened the door.

"What?" Newt shouted, not bothering to hide his irritation.

Justin opened the door a crack, just enough to see Newt. "Frankie says dinner will be in ten minutes," he said. He hesitated, then added more quietly, "I think she's really making an effort."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Newt asked. He felt singularly unimpressed. One halfway decent meal wasn't going to make up for weeks of misery and no Lauren.

Justin shrugged. "Your call," he said, "but she is trying." He shut the door, and Newt looked over at Eli to share an eyeroll at how people Just Didn't Get It.

Eli looked back inscrutably. "What was all that about?" he asked.

"She made a mistake," Newt said briefly. He didn't want to explain about being accused of stealing to Eli. He didn't want to see... He just didn't want to talk about it.

"Milk it for all it's worth," Eli advised him, grinning broadly. Newt couldn't help but grin back, even though he felt faintly sick about what he wasn't saying.

"Anyway, it's time I left if you've got a fancy family meal," Eli continued. "We don't want anyone finding me where I'm not supposed to be."

"Are you going to be OK?" Newt asked. He didn't really want his best friend disappearing on him again, and right now he had leverage. "I could get Frankie to let you stay if you want."

Eli shook his head. "If the wrong people find out I'm here, there'll be hell to pay," he said. "Don't you worry about me, I'll be fine. It's you I worry about, kiddo."

"You are two years older than me," Newt said snippily. "Two years. You do not get to call me kiddo any more." There was silence between them for a moment, and Newt started feeling guilty all over again about not mentioning the thefts. "It's not so bad here," he said on impulse.

"Huh." Eli looked at him long and hard before grinning ruefully. "Look at you, all grown up," he said. "Just keep safe, OK?"

"I will," Newt said. He ducked his head, not sure what to do with the praise he was getting. "I'd better go and wash up. Will you be OK getting out?"

"No one will know I was here," Eli assured him. "I'll see you again soon."

This was about as good as things could be, Newt thought as he headed for the bathroom. Having Eli around, it meant there was someone he could depend on. He loved Lauren and the Osbourns weren't so bad, but with his best friend around it was like he actually had solid ground to stand on. Maybe things were going to be better this year.

* * *

Fletch nudged Josh. "New girl," he said.

"That's nice," Josh told him absently, not looking up from his book. He'd have to remember to thank Warren for mentioning Feng Shui. While the library didn't have anything that went into any useful detail, some of the ideas were definitely applicable to druidic magic.

"Who is she?" Amy asked.

"No idea," Fletch said enthusiastically, "but she's coming this way."

Josh sighed, marked his page and stuffed his book back in his backpack. He wouldn't have got much more read before classes started anyway.

The new girl turned out to be dark haired and lightly built, maybe a little taller than Amy but not quite as good looking in Josh's admittedly biased opinion. She was also glancing between her phone and Amy in a manner Josh found deeply suspicious.

"Hi!" Fletch said with all the restraint and subtlety of a hyper labrador. "I'm Jamie Fletcher, but everyone calls me Fletch." He grabbed her free hand and shook it.

"Uh, hello?" the girl said, understandably disconcerted. Josh loved his cousin, but sometimes Fletch could be a bit much. Most of the time, really.

Extracting her hand from Fletch's clutches, the girl turned back to Amy. "Are you Amy Barnes?" she asked in a broad Scouse accent.

Amy looked at her dubiously. "Who's asking?" she said.

"I'm Polly Brown," the girl said. "Mr Harris said I should introduce myself." She stared at Amy a little longer before something apparently clicked. "Oh my god, you were there!" She flailed unhelpfully for a moment before adding, "With the snake!"

A snake? Josh tried to think of when Amy might have been anywhere near... Oh. "At Harry's school?" he asked.

Polly looked faintly baffled at that, but Amy's eyes lit up. "You were there too?" she asked Polly, who nodded. "Wow, that's... Does that mean you're here to help with the after school club?"

Was she here as a Slayer, Josh translated for himself. The answer was pretty obviously yes, especially when Polly looked dubiously at Fletch and himself.

"What after school club is this?" Fletch asked. "And what was that about a snake?"

"It's girl stuff," Josh said quickly. It was even true if you thought about it, since all Slayers were girls. "Come on, we don't want to hear this next bit."

Amy gave him an incredulous look as he towed a protesting Fletch away. Josh shrugged apologetically. It was the best he could think of in the moment, and it wasn't like Fletch would remember.

"What is it with you these days?" Fletch asked, as if to prove him wrong. "And what happened over Christmas?"

"What do you mean?" Josh asked. He didn't know exactly what Fletch had noticed, and he didn't want to explain more than he had to. He didn't really want any more of his friends involved in the supernatural world and all its dangers. It was bad enough that Mics knew, he didn't want to put Fletch or Sasha at risk too. Not unless he had to.

Fletch rolled his eyes. "I mean one day you're mooning over Amy, the next you're shacked up with Ste. What the hell, Josh? I never figured you as gay."

"We weren't expecting it either," Josh admitted it. "It's just... There was some scary stuff we had to deal with, and by the end of it we just knew. We balance each other." He was expecting Fletch to say something disgusted about soulmates, so he was a bit surprised to find his cousin looking at him with concern.

"'Scary stuff'?" Fletch asked.

"Ste nearly died." Fear clutched at Josh again as he said the words. He had so nearly never known what an amazing man Ste was under that tough bad-boy exterior. How loving he was when you loved him. If Amy hadn't rescued them, if he hadn't become attuned to the Grove...

"Wow, you've got it bad," Fletch said, looking at him carefully. "Are you sure he's not taking advantage of you?"

"Only as much as I'm taking advantage of him," Josh replied. "You know he's just started working at _Gnosh?_ " Fletch nodded. "Well he's getting a bit obsessive about practising the recipes. He hasn't let Mum cook all week."

"Is that good or bad?" Fletch asked uncertainly.

"So good," Josh reassured him. "I know I'm going to get gyp for being with him, but he's worth it. Even if he couldn't cook he'd be worth it."

Fletch was silent for a while. When Josh looked over he was looking down and worrying at his lip, never a good sign. "What is it?" Josh asked, maybe a little more sharply than he had intended.

"Nothing," Fletch said quickly. "I set them straight anyway, so it doesn't matter."

Josh just looked at him.

"It was some of the footie team," Fletch admitted. "They were going on about how they'd always known you must be gay because of the song writing. Talk about stupid! I mean, tell that to Paul McCartney or Elton John."

"Elton John is gay," Josh felt obliged to point out.

Fletch sighed. "They also reckoned you must be paying Ste," he said quietly.

Josh tried to clamp down on his anger. John Paul had warned him that things like this would happen, like how he'd been called 'McQueer' for weeks after coming out. That didn't make it any less unpleasant. Josh tried to twist it, imagining Ste being chuffed at being though good-looking enough to be paid for sex...

Nope. Not happy. Someone was going to get a righteous cursing the moment Josh figured out how.


	4. Educating Warren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren finally finds out about demons and magic. Fletch gets thrown out.

"You seriously expect me to believe all that?"

Justin shrugged, took another sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. Sat in the warmth of _Il Gnosh_ , he couldn't blame Warren for being sceptical. "I know it sounds crazy," he said, "but it's true. I'm a druid."

"Prove it," Warren sneered. "Do a magic trick, or whatever it is you do."

"No chance," Justin said firmly, shaking his head. "First off, I'm not going to do anything to draw attention in public. The grief I'd get from everyone else just isn't worth it." That and solo spellcasting was next to impossible for him, but Warren didn't need to know that. "Second, the stuff we do isn't like that. It isn't flashy. Well, except for the lightning," he finished thoughtfully.

"The lightning," Warren drawled.

"There was a storm overhead," Justin explained. "Someone tried to kill Josh and was struck by lightning. So was the next person to try it. Ste wasn't feeling very forgiving."

"Funny, I don't remember the newspapers saying anything about anyone struck by lightning."

"We couldn't exactly take them to hospital." In fact they were in forced hibernation with the other Snatchers. No one had had the time or the inclination to try to wake them up in the last couple of weeks, never mind Andrew's suspicion that they needed to wait until spring.

"So you've got no proof at all of this fairy tale," Warren said pointedly.

Justin shrugged again. "Short of finding a demon to introduce you to, which would probably be a spectacularly bad idea," he said easily. "Sorry, but all the showy stuff isn't my secret to tell."

Warren didn't seem any more inclined to believe that than anything else Justin had said. "Well this was a waste of my time," he said.

"You got a decent cup of coffee," Justin objected, "and you know who to come to if someone gets poisoned. Just be careful, OK?"

"What, in case one of your demons tries to bite my head off?"

"Because I know you," Justin countered. "Eventually you'll decide that I'm not lying, and you'll find some way to take advantage of things. Chances are there will be things waiting to take advantage of you." Someone like Astarte, who had taken people who wouldn't be missed and turned them into sex slaves. Justin couldn't suppress a shudder at the memory of what Jake had been put through. At what he would have been put through himself if Xander, Amy and Mike hadn't come charging to the rescue.

He looked up from his coffee to see Warren starting at him, a strange look on his face. "What?" he demanded, irritated that it was this of all things that Warren had fixed on.

Whatever Warren might have said was lost when a car roared into the square and pulled up more or less outside _Gnosh_. Justin stood up, so had a perfect view when the passenger-side door opened and a lanky teenager was pushed out. Not good, Justin thought to himself and ran for the door. Warren was close behind him, and he wasn't the only one.

He was in time to hear the kid shout "Dad!" pleadingly. There was no verbal answer, but a suitcase was thrown out of the car. It hit the boy as he struggled upright, knocking him back down and strewing clothes everywhere. Then the door slammed shut and the car tore out of the square with an angry roar.

"Dad!" The cry was broken this time, the kid near to tears. Justin had no hesitation in getting down to his level and putting an arm around his shoulders.

"It's OK," he said, "we've got you." He vaguely recognised the tall, fair-haired boy, probably from school when he'd still been there, and he hoped that maybe he'd be familiar enough to the guy.

"What the hell happened?" Warren demanded. He sounded pretty pissed off, though judging from the glare he sent after the car it wasn't with the kid.

"Dad... discovered he wasn't my dad." The kid gave them a watery smile, trying and failing to make light of the situation.

"And what, he just threw you out?" Warren sounded properly outraged now. Beside him, Dom, in charge of the restaurant today, looked horrified.

The kid nodded. "He said if I wasn't his, he wasn't paying another penny for me."

"More fool him then," Justin said forcefully. "You are the only person who can't be blamed for that."

"Right," Dom said decisively, very much unlike his normal easy-going self. He looked at Justin and Warren. "You two get Fletch inside and sit him down. Ste?"

"Calling Josh," Ste said, his phone already at his ear.

Dom nodded. "When you're done, fancy having a go at Tony's hot chocolate recipe?"

Ste's eyes lit up. "Deffo," he said. "Hot and sweet for the shock, right?" He turned away before Dom could answer, explaining the situation rapidly to his phone.

"The rest of you," Dom said to the little crowd of onlookers, "can help me gather these clothes up. It won't take a minute if we all chip in." Normally when Dom said something like that it came out weakly, a can't-we-all-be-friends plea. This time it was clearly not a suggestion. Justin made a mental note not to piss off Dom unnecessarily.

"Come on," Justin said, helping Fletch to his feet, "let's get you out of this cold." He tried to keep his voice sounding normal, not wanting to seem like he was pitying the kid. God knows he'd hated that enough when it had happened to him.

"But my stuff," Fletch protested weakly.

"Never mind that," Warren told him. "I want you inside before you freeze to death." Despite the scathing tone, that was way more sympathetic than Warren normally was about anyone else's problems. Justin had an idea why, but he wasn't about to call Warren on it. Despite some of the things he had done in the last couple of months, he wasn't actually suicidal.

"Dom's on the case," he said instead. "He'll probably make them fold your clothes neatly as they collect them. Don't be surprised if someone does a run down to the launderette." Warren snorted and Fletch smiled faintly, which was honestly more reaction than Justin had expected.

Between the two of them it didn't take long to get Fletch settled at a table. Justin wasn't entirely sure what to do next. Talk to the guy, he guessed, and try to take him mind off what had happened.

"So you're a friend of Josh's then?" he tried.

Fletch, who had been staring off into the middle distance, blinked and refocused on them. "Uh, yeah," he said. "I'm his cousin."

Warren jumped in. "So what's all this going on with him lately?" he asked. Justin gave him a mildly reproving glare, not that he'd really expected Warren not to dig.

"You mean him bending over for Ste?" Fletch asked.

"I have it on good authority it's the other way round," Justin said, smirking evilly. Josh had certainly been on top for the solstice ritual.

"You leave my sex life out of this," Ste said as he passed them on his way back to the kitchen.

"They're sharing a room with Rhys," Justin told the others. "You can imagine how well that's going."

Fletch goggled. "Oh God, the whining," he said. He very nearly grinned, which Justin counted as a win. Then his face fell. "If they're having to share, they won't have room for me."

"They'll find somewhere," Justin said confidently. Fletch might be sleeping on the sofa, but Justin knew from experience that wasn't so bad. "Besides, Josh and Ste will be moving out in a few weeks anyway."

"Oh yeah?" Warren sneered. "Magicked some rent money out of nowhere, have they?"

Justin contemplated telling him again that their magic didn't work like that. It would only confuse Fletch, he decided. "A friend of ours is doing up that big house near the park," he said instead. "He's got rooms to spare, and he's offered them one."

Fletch frowned. "Who's that then?" he asked.

"Xander Harris. I don't think you've met him, he only arrived a bit before Christmas."

"The new barman at the _Dog_?" Warren asked, looking a bit too interested for Justin's comfort.

"He's just pitching in until Jack's fit," he explained. "His real job is pretty flexible, and his employer doesn't mind as long as what needs to be done gets done."

"So he's not a barman then?" Fletch asked, sounding confused.

"He said he'd been a barman for a while," Justin admitted, "but that was years ago."

"So what is he?" Warren asked.

Justin considered his answer carefully. "Roving trouble-shooter," he said eventually. Technically, as far as he understood it, Watchers were supposed to assess situations and advise their Slayers on how to deal with them. That was as good a definitions of a trouble-shooter as any.

Fletch frowned. "What sort of trouble does he expect to find around here?" he asked.

"Not much, but probably more than you'd think," Justin said truthfully. Warren looked at him narrowly. "To be fair, I think he covers everything from here north," Justin added. He didn't actually have any idea how the IWC was structured, but it sounded impressive enough and it wasn't like Xander cared.

Warren had that look that said he was busy putting two and two together. Justin was fine with that; there was no point in trying to keep the names of the druids from him, it was too easy to make the connections. Fletch, on the other hand, looked mystified. "I still don't get what he does."

Justin hesitated. He didn't want to tell Fletch about the supernatural, partly because that was Josh's call and partly because there was way too much attention on them at the moment. "It's hard to explain," he tried.

Fortunately Ste appeared before Justin could get himself too tangled, and put a brimming mug topped with whipped cream in front of Fletch. "Here you go," he said, "one _Gnosh_ special hot chocolate."

"Uh, thanks," Fletch said uncertainly. He reached for his pocket.

"On the house," Ste told him. "It's the first time I've made it, so no promises."

Fletch eyed the concoction warily and took a careful sip. His eyes widened. The next sip was bigger, and he moaned in pleasure. "Ohmygodthatsgood."

Justin had never actually watched _When Harry Met Sally_ , but it was the only possible follower for that. "I'll have what he's having," he said as innocently as he could.

Fletch choked. Ste lifted an eyebrow. "You paying for it?" he challenged. Fletch choked again.

"If you two are done flirting?" Warren didn't sound particularly offended, and Justin caught something perilously close to a genuine smile on his face. Before he could figure out a suitable come-back, the door opened and Josh hurried in, his father hard on his heels. Behind them, Dom carried in Fletch's suitcase.

"What the heck happened?" Neville Ashworth demanded.

"Young Fletch here got a freebie off Ste," Warren said easily, "And now Justin wants one too."

"You're not helping," Justin told him as Fletch spluttered and Neville looked non-plussed. Ste just rolled his eyes, and Josh ignored them and pulled up a chair.

"How are you feeling?" he asked his cousin.

"Confused," Fletch admitted. He sighed and closed his eyes. "Dad threw me out."

"Then you can stay with us," Josh declared fiercely.

Neville nodded. "I'll not have any flesh and blood of mine living on the streets," he said, all affronted middle-class dignity.

"But I'm not, am I?" Fletch said dully. He sagged in his seat.

Neville, bless him, was having none of it. "You're my wife's sister-in-law's son," he insisted. "That's good enough for me, and never mind what that man says about it." That was pretty generous of him, Justin thought, but maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Rumour had it that Rhys, his eldest, wasn't actually Neville's son.

"Come on," Josh said, "let's get you home."

Justin watched as the little group got itself together, Dom passing the suitcase over to Neville. He and Warren exchanged smirks as Dom explained that yes, he had sent everything that had got dirty down to the launderette. "Ste can take it with him when his shift ends," he said. Ste looked martyred.

Josh shook his head. "Rhys can pick it up later," he said. "The _Drive'N'Buy's_ pretty much next door."

"Yeah," Fletch said with a glimmer of enthusiasm, "you don't want Ste wasting his time with that when he could be making hot chocolate." He drained his mug before handing it back. "Seriously," he told Josh, "better than sex."

"You're clearly doing the sex wrong," Ste told him. Justin could see a blush stealing up his neck, though.

Josh gave Ste a considering look. "Maybe I should try both, just for comparison purposes?"

"There will be no funny business under my roof," Neville said firmly. He ushered Josh and Fletch out, resolutely not looking at Ste who was visibly blushing now.

"Bit late for that," Warren observed as Ste and Dom retreated to the kitchen.

Justin nodded. "I'm pretty sure Rhys had broken that rule by the time he was sixteen."

"So is this what you think you're supposed to do now?" Warren asked. "Rescue the hopeless cases?" His tone of voice said how little he thought of that idea.

"Nah," Justin said easily. "That's something I learned a while back. There's this guy I know took in a teenager with no friends and no future." He looked significantly at Warren, who clearly took his point.

"If you think I did that out of the goodness of my heart, you've got another thing coming."

"Sure," Justin agreed, "but if you think the goodness of your heart had nothing to do with it, you're kidding yourself." Justin was pretty sure of that now. Someone had told a young Warren Fox that he was worthless, maybe a lot of people, and he hated seeing that happen to anyone else. For all Warren genuinely didn't care about breaking the law as long as he didn't get caught, he did care about hurting people who didn't deserve it. That was why he had taken Justin in, and that was why he had helped take care of Fletch just now.

People really weren't as black and white as they liked to seem.


	5. Story Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kieron takes assembly. Xander takes charge.

"With us for assembly this morning we have Father Kieron Hobbs."

Kieron smiled at Headmaster Govinda Roy and took his place as the pupils clapped unenthusiastically. Keep it light, he reminded himself. Teenagers were a tough audience when they did want to listen to you.

"When I was at school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth," he began, and was relieved to get a few laughs, "my parish priest didn't have it easy at assemblies. I went to a Catholic school, so we all knew our bible stories and he actually had to think of things to say to us.

"Now I reckon at least some of you here haven't read the Bible cover to cover." More laughs, thank you Lord. "So I thought I'd tell you one of those bible stories this morning. Don't worry, it's a short one."

Quickly he described honest, upright Jonah to them, aware of how little time he had. He played up the death and destruction part of God's message to Jonah, confident that at least would appeal to the boys. Then he crossed his fingers and tried getting a reaction from the kids.

"So what do you think Jonah did?" he asked. No hands went up instantly, which would have been a bit much to ask for. "He's got this message from God to the awful people of Nineveh, which was a pretty long way away. How do you think he reacted?"

One of the younger boys tentatively put up his hand. "Did he do what God told him?" he asked.

"That would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn't it?" Kieron told him. "Any more ideas? Yes?" He pointed to one of the girls.

"Send someone to tell them?"

"That's a good idea," Kieron said, nodding approvingly. "If Nineveh was that nasty, they might beat up someone who came to tell them off. Anyone else?" No more hands, so Kieron took a risk and pointed to a bunch of older boys who looked like troublemakers. "What would you do?"

"Run like buggery," the skinhead leader shouted.

Kieron smiled. "Have you been reading ahead," he asked, "because that's exactly what Jonah did. He packed up his belongings, went down to the harbour and got on a ship going in completely the opposite direction to Nineveh. Well, you can imagine how pleased God was about that!"

There was lots of laughter this time, and Kieron let himself relax. He played up the storm and the whale, how despite his best intentions Jonah found himself at Nineveh. "And the people of Nineveh looked at each other and said, 'This Jonah guy, he's right you know. We've been getting this all wrong, what with being greedy and nasty and not caring about anyone else. Now God's going to destroy us, and all the stuff we thought was so important won't matter anyway.' So they gave up doing the things God didn't want them to do, made themselves miserable apologising for all they had done wrong, and tried really hard to behave themselves.

"Now all that God had wanted from the start was for the people of Nineveh to play ball. When He saw that they had learned their lesson and were trying to be good, even if they didn't always succeed, he told Jonah to tell them He wouldn't destroy them after all. Job done."

Kieron pulled his shoulders back and made himself look self-satisfied, trying his best to give the kids the wrong cues. "How do you think Jonah felt about that?" he asked.

The answers came quickly this time, lots of variations on 'pleased' and 'proud' until the skinhead boy chipped in again. "Should have kicked their arses," he called out.

The headmaster was half out of his chair in an instant, so Kieron jumped in quickly. "You've heard this one before, haven't you?" he said, grinning broadly. "Jonah was not happy at all. He was more, 'I'm hundreds of miles from home, I stink of fish and you won't even smite them? What have I done to deserve this?'" He glanced at his watch and realised he was basically out of time.

"To cut a long story short, God did a couple more miracles to make his point. Eventually Jonah did have to admit that smiting people who were genuinely sorry was maybe a bit much, especially since he hadn't exactly been obedient himself. And that's the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet." Not how he would talk about it from the pulpit, but you tailored your speech to your audience.

"There's two things I'd like you to take away from this story. The first is, if God's got a job for you, don't run away from it. You'll just end up with fish guts in your hair, and nobody likes that." The kids laughed freely at that, even the troublemakers.

Kieron paused and looked more serious before continuing. "The second thing is if you do something wrong and you're genuinely sorry about it, that's OK with God. He's got a way out for you. But that's a story for another time."

Kieron stepped back and again let the Headmaster lead the applause — thankfully more enthusiastic this time. A few short notices and assembly was over, the kids standing and starting to file out of the room. Kieron started towards the skinhead kid and his friends, intending to plant a few more ideas while he had their attention, but one of the teachers intercepted him.

"Nicely done, Padre," the man said. "You've got a way with words."

"Thank you," Kieron said, smiling automatically. He managed not to sigh as the kids he wanted to talk to left the room. "Mr Townsend, wasn't it?"

"Call me Des." Townsend turned in the direction Kieron had been looking and snorted. "I wouldn't waste your time on that one," he said. "He's just like his father."

"I wouldn't be much of a parish priest if I let that stop me," Kieron told him.

"He's not one of yours," Townsend protested. "I doubt he's ever been in a church in his life, except maybe to nick the candlesticks."

Stealing his church's candlesticks would be quite an effort, Kieron thought. He got enough of a workout just setting them out on the altar, how old Father David had managed he had no idea. That wasn't the point, though. "When I was made parish priest," he explained, "I was given the 'cure of souls' as we call it for the whole parish. All of them are in my care, not just the ones who show up on a Sunday morning. Besides, no one is beyond God's help. Not you, not me, and certainly not him."

Townsend looked annoyed to be included in that list. Probably a militant atheist then, Kieron thought. It would certainly explain why he was being so dismissive. Regardless, Townsend quickly masked his irritation and shrugged. "It's your time to waste," he said. "Be careful though, you know what people will say if they see a priest chasing after a teenager."

Kieron's smile got rather fixed. He was all too aware of the stories of abuse, and how badly the Church had handled the scandal. It would look a thousand times worse if people knew he was gay, and never mind that he had given up even the idea of a relationship when he joined the priesthood. The needs of all his flock were too important for him to prioritise the needs of one, whatever their gender.

Fortunately he had a ready-made answer. "If that's what God wants me to do, a bit of gossip isn't going to stop me. I'm really not fond of fish."

Townsend looked at him dubiously. "If you're sure," he said. "Well, I've got a lesson to get to. Have a good day."

"You too," Kieron replied automatically. He gathered his things together slowly, wondering how he could handle this sort of situation in the future. There were bound to be other young men and women who needed more individual pastoral care, and damn it now that was even sounding suspicious in his head. His teachers at seminary had been at pains to point out that the appearance of sin, while not itself sinful, could stop him doing the good that needed to be done. Unfortunately they hadn't had much practical advice beyond never being alone with a young person, which was no help at all when you needed to talk with someone on their own.

If he wanted his ministry to be meaningful, Kieron realised with a sinking heart, he was going to have to find his own solutions.

* * *

Xander stepped into the club, smiling with entirely fake pleasure. Beside him, Jake was controlled and wary.

He should have done this weeks ago, Xander reflected. He had meant to revisit the _Pole Star_ straight after they had rescued Jake and the others, to make it clear to whoever had taken charge that he wasn't going to tolerate that kind of crap. It had been one thing after another though. What with the solstice ritual, Christmas, the wizard war and the house, he had only just remembered about the club.

They still had to have the fear of the Council put in them. Giles had agreed about that when Xander called to ask him, and had offered his advice freely. Xander had opted for the polite chat approach, not taking his Slayers along this time. He couldn't pull it off as well as Giles or Spike, or even Angel when the vampire wasn't in a broodfest, but he wasn't too shabby.

Then he made the mistake of mentioning it to Jake and Justin. Jake had take a shaky breath and insisted on going with him. Justin, predictably, had objected.

"I need to know this is over," Jake had said. "I can't let anyone else be trapped the way I was. The way you nearly were." Privately Xander hadn't considered that very likely. Things that could enforce binding oaths weren't that common, not without informed consent anyway. Still, there were other ways of trapping people, and Xander couldn't fault Jake for wanting to be sure the operation was closed down.

"Then I'm coming too," Justin had declared.

Jake had shaken his head. "I'd feel better if you were nowhere near the place," he had said. "Last time... Anyway, three of us would be pushing it for a friendly visit."

Xander had leapt on that excuse gratefully. Two people was pushing it in his opinion, and he knew if he hadn't drawn the line there he'd have ended up with everyone else butting in too. He had eventually talked Justin into hanging back at Amy's in case they needed rescuing. Experience at Willy's and similar demon bars around the world suggested that wasn't very likely, but experience had also taught Xander to be as prepared as possible.

Approaching the bar, Xander couldn't say the _Pole Star_ looked any different from his first and only brief visit. It still had that tawdry air to it, like the dancers were displaying their wares rather than trying to entertain. Not that Xander was ever going to admit that he knew the difference from practical experience, which was definitely not a thought he needed to be thinking going into this. Think James Bond, he told himself. Better yet, think Giles in full Ripper mode.

"What can I get you gents?" the barman asked, professionally affable.

Xander smiled. "How about a chat with the new owner?" he said.

The barman looked at him warily. "Why would he want to see you?"

"Because we had some serious issues with how Astarte ran this place, and we hate to see mistakes repeated." Xander kept smiling as he fished a business card out of his pocket and handed it over. "Just give him my card and see if he can make some time."

The barman shrugged and disappeared without saying anything more. Xander leaned against the bar and tried to look like he was taking in the room while he really kept an eye on Jake. Who was coping fairly well, it seemed. "You OK?" Xander murmured.

"Yeah," Jake said, not entirely convincingly. "Out here, at least. I don't know what I'll be like out of the public areas."

"It's not too late if you want to back out," Xander said gently. "I planned to go alone originally. You could stay out here if you wanted."

Jake shook his head. "If I don't come with, I'll never get rid of the fear."

The barman picked that moment to reappear. "Mr Grace will see you now," he said. "If you'd follow Hugo?" Hugo was a six foot doorstop in the shape of a man. He looked like a bruiser, which paradoxically made Xander feel happier. He was fairly sure he was the dirtier fighter, and a knee to the nuts was a great leveller.

Hugo led them through a side door — mercifully not the one Xander remembered Jake going through — into a chaotic mix of offices and store rooms. Xander was a little boggled; he had done a few bartending jobs when he was fresh out of school, but none of them had looked this disorganised behind the scenes. He would have put it down as some weird Britishism but he knew Jake's family pub wasn't run like this, and Jake was looking every bit as baffled as Xander felt.

"How do they find anything in this?" Jake asked. The room he was peering into appeared to contain toilet rolls, random boxes of weird-flavoured chips and a couple of washing machines.

Xander shrugged. "I guess the boss lady didn't care about this side of the business," he offered.

"Yeah, but..." Jake shook his head. "This is ludicrous."

Hugo stopped at a door and knocked. After a moment there was a slightly strangled cry of "Come in," and Hugo opened the door and stepped aside. Xander stepped inside, Jake hard on his heels, to find a small office flooded with paperwork. Xander was willing to bet it was every bit as haphazardly filed as the storerooms. Behind a suspiciously clear desk stood a short, thin, bespectacled man in his early thirties. Frankly he looked more nervous than Jake had.

"Hi, come in," he said unnecessarily as Hugo closed the door behind them. "Please take a seat. My name is Bill Grace, please don't kill me." He paused. "Oh God, I said that last bit out loud, didn't I?"

Xander took one look at the single chair on his side of the desk and decided standing was the safer option. "Don't worry," he said, smiling easily, "if we were going to do you any harm we wouldn't have knocked nicely at the front door." Last time he had snuck in through a back window after all.

"You're the owner?" Jake blurted out.

Grace drew himself up. "I'm... an accountant," he admitted, deflating again. "Everything was in my name because Madame Astarte didn't legally exist. Now everyone expects me to know where everything is, hire people and source kittens for poker night, and I can't even find last night's bar receipts any more."

"Hey, it's OK," Xander began, but Grace had managed to work himself up to a hysterical pitch.

"Now you're here, the White Knight himself, and you're going to close us down, and you know what? I'm glad. My family have run a major London department store for generations, at least this way they won't know what a failure I am." He collapsed into his chair, which creaked alarmingly.

"I'm not here to close you down," Xander said firmly.

"You're not?" Grace put his head in his hands, if anything looking more like he was about to burst into tears.

"We generally like demon bars," Xander told him. He was stretching things a little — 'like' was a strong word for his appreciation of Willie's — but it was basically true. "As long as no one is getting killed, injured or held against their will, we have no problem with places for all sorts of people to get together and have fun. When people are being magically restrained and turned into sex slaves, that we have a big problem with."

Grace whimpered. "We don't do that any more," he said. "We don't know how to."

"Then we don't have a problem," Xander said. He smiled again, and was about to add something about going to look for themselves when the door opened and a young woman stuck her head in.

"Boss, we've got a problem," she said. Xander turned to glare at her for interrupting, since Grace didn't seem inclined to. She ignored him. "There's a guy at the back door wants to talk to Madame," she continued, sounding horrified.

"Did you tell him—?" Grace began.

"He kept interrupting me," the woman interrupted without a trace of irony. "He said he didn't care about excuses, just that some guy called Alexander was calling in his debt. Only he said it funny."

"Alexander?" Grace looked baffled for a moment, and Xander contemplated pointing out that it wasn't him. Then something seemed to click and Grace whimpered again. "Oh God, was he Russian? Please tell me he wasn't Russian."

The woman shrugged. "Maybe?" she said unhelpfully. "He was some kind of foreign, maybe Eastern European?"

Grace positively shrank into his chair. "Aleksandr Rostov. He's Russian mob. He loaned Madame some of her start-up capital. Now he's calling it in and we don't have that kind of cash."

"He's got a coffin with him," the woman added.

"He's going to kill me," Grace wailed.

"A coffin," Jake said coldly. "And he wants _her._ "

Xander was thinking along the same lines; a coffin was an easy way to transport an unconscious body. He smiled grimly. "Then let's give him her. I'll go talk to him, keep him busy—"

"You're American," Jake objected. "He'll notice your accent and wonder what's going on." He looked at Grace, who was still having hysterics, and rolled his eyes. "I'll stall him, it can't be any harder than putting up with Warren."

Xander nodded reluctantly. He would never have asked Jake, not to put him in a situation that was way too close to the nightmare he'd been through, and definitely not with a potentially dangerous Russian mobster. Jake was taking charge, though. Grace's inability to cope with anything seemed to offended Jake, the stepson of a publican himself, and he had a set-jawed determination about him now. He probably also had the right skillset to play the apologetic host. Sighing, Xander pulled out his phone and called someone else he really didn't want in this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Grace Brothers is the department store at the heart of "Are You Being Served?" This wasn't the potential crossover I was talking about, honest.


	6. Special Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Chester, Nikolai.

"See you tomorrow."

Newt didn't care that he was grinning like a loon as he walked away from Lauren. They had managed to steal a couple of hours after school when both sets of fascist overlords (or parents as they wanted to be called) thought they were under someone else's control. It had been brilliant. They had shared so much with each other, as much as they could in public, and it only confirmed to Newt how brilliant Lauren was. They thought so much alike that they had to be soulmates.

And then at the end they had kissed. Just the once, since they were standing at the foot of the steps leading up to the Valentine's house and word was bound to get back to their parents. Newt was enthusiastically in favour of doing it again, whenever they could. There had to be some way he could find a place they could spend all evening, and he could show Lauren just how special she was.

"So that's your girl then?" Eli said, appearing out of the shadows and falling into step.

"Yeah," Newt breathed. He knew it made him sound like a brainless idiot, but he didn't care.

"Huh."

Newt's attention snapped back from daydreams of Lauren to his best friend. "'Huh'?" he asked.

"What? Can't a guy just say 'Huh' without getting interrogated?" Eli tried.

"Not when it sounds so judgemental," Newt countered.

Eli rolled his eyes. "I didn't expect her to be so..." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"Black?" Newt offered, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

"Butch," Eli said.

That wasn't actually any better, Newt decided. Lauren was solidly built, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. "Her physicality is one of the things I love about her," he said.

Eli raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you like girls?"

"I like Lauren," Newt said firmly. He didn't care for labels, but in the abstract he was attracted to women. It was just that the only one he wanted to be with was Lauren.

Eli didn't look convinced, but he let the subject drop. "Everything OK at school?" he asked. "You're not getting bullied or anything?"

"I refuse to conform to their petty ideas of normal," Newt told him. Of course he was being bullied.

"So no change there," Eli sighed. "Who do I have to kill?"

"It's just words," Newt said dismissively. "Everyone knows the teachers would come down on actual violence like a ton of bricks." Well, Mr Roy would.

"You sure of that?" Eli asked sceptically. Newt knew Eli didn't trust teachers either, he had said so often enough.

"No one's done anything yet. Though I don't like the way Gaz keeps looking at us," Newt added thoughtfully. "It's practically stalking, he must be up to something."

"That's the skinhead kid?" Eli asked. Newt nodded. "Huh."

"Eli."

"What? That wasn't even a bit judgemental."

"Don't you dare do anything to Gaz," Newt said firmly. "Violence doesn't solve anything."

"It would if I scared the shit out of him," Eli said sulkily.

"Anyway, like I said he hasn't done anything yet," Newt continued, glaring at Eli. "When he does, then you can beat the crap out of him. Until then, just pity him for having such a small world." That was a punishment all in itself, Newt reckoned. Never having the courage to look beyond what he was told? People like Gaz missed out on so much, they deserved to be pitied.

"If you say so," Eli said. He sounded far from convinced.

Newt sighed as they reached the _Dog_. It was surprisingly shadowy at the door to the flat despite the brightly lit public entrance. "Do you want to come up?" he asked.

Eli grinned. "Nah. It's better for everyone if no one knows I'm here."

"Have you got somewhere to stay?" Newt asked, brought up short by the thought. "Somewhere proper I mean, with heating and everything." He didn't like the idea of Eli freezing in the cold winter nights.

"You say that like I've never taken care of myself before," Eli told him. "Yeah, I've found myself somewhere nice and warm, out of the way where no one will find me."

"Really?" Newt asked, perking up. He had been wondering about finding somewhere private to go with Lauren. "Any chance you could show me?"

"So you can take your girl there and shag her senseless?" Eli said. "Not a chance. You are practically my brother, Newt, but I draw the line at you having sex in my crib."

Newt couldn't avoid blushing at that. Trust Eli to find the crudest possible way of putting things. He obviously wasn't going to change his mind though, and Newt wasn't going to deny he'd been thinking along those lines himself.

"Ah well," he said, "it was worth a try. Good night, Eli."

"Keep safe, Newt," Eli replied. "See you again soon."

This had been a good day, Newt thought to himself, watching his best friend disappear back into the shadows. Then again, any day with both Lauren and Eli in it couldn't be all bad. Now all he had to do was survive his foster-family for the evening and figure out how to get more time alone with his girlfriend.

Piece of cake.

* * *

Jake was almost caught by surprise when the door opened.

Playing host to the surly Russian mobster hadn't been much like serving people he knew at the _Dog._ For one thing, Jake found himself ordering people around rather than doing the work himself. He silently blessed Xander for making him order his gardening crew around at Grove House; it gave him the confidence to both check and firmly reject the barman's first attempt to palm cheap vodka off on him.

Jake had eventually managed to persuade the Russian inside with more acceptable alcohol. Four of the club's bouncers were pressed into service to carry in the well-polished coffin he wouldn't let out of his sight. It contained someone that this Rostov guy wanted Astarte to break, Jake would bet anything on that. Shame for him that she was dead.

When the door opened and Astarte walked in, Jake nearly had a heart attack. He hadn't known her for long, but she was unmistakable. For a moment he was back in the dungeon, terrified and tricked, but then Xander and Conrad walked in and Jake understood. Conrad's wizard magic could easily —

No. Not Conrad. Here of all places Jake had to think of the boy as Draco, as a person in his own right and not the slave that Astarte had made him into. Just being here had to be incredibly hard for him.

Astarte — presumably Amy in disguise — ignored Jake as she strode forward, instead addressing the mobster. "I trust your wait was pleasant," she said, eyeing the man's shot glass.

He slapped the glass down on the table. "You are late," he said bluntly. Jake tried not to wince.

"And you are rude," not-Astarte fired back. "I'll overlook that this time." Her voice sounded right, Jake thought, but the words she used were more colloquial English than Astarte's weird sort-of foreign speech patterns. It made it easier to remember that this was all an act, that he wasn't trapped again.

The Russian held Amy's gaze for a few seconds before he looked down. "I am Mikhail Agratiev," he muttered. "Aleksandr Rostov sent me."

"And how is my dear friend?" not-Astarte asked imperiously.

"He is well," Agratiev admitted. He looked pointedly and Xander, Draco and Jake and didn't say anything more.

Not-Astarte smiled slightly. "I train my staff thoroughly," she said, glancing amusedly at Xander. "They won't say anything without my permission." Definitely Amy then, Jake thought. Xander for his part looked like he was biting back a smart remark.

Agratiev looked dubious, but obviously decided there was no mileage in arguing about it. "Aleksandr has rivals," he said, looking like it was physically painful to admit it. "They are not so important. But it occurred to him that you could deal with one problem for him. And have profit," he added, nodding towards the coffin.

"A present for me?" Amy said idly, her smile not reaching her eyes. "He shouldn't have. Open it," she commanded Xander.

Xander produced a power screwdriver from somewhere and set to work. Less than a minute later he was levering off the lid to reveal a young man, late teens to early twenties, strapped firmly into place. Between the straps, the gag and the padding inside the coffin, Jake didn't think there was any way the kid could have made himself known.

"Nikolai Gregorovich Kraslov," Agratiev announced. "His father is a nuisance and must be punished."

"By punishing his son," Amy said abstractedly, looking the tall young man up and and down. Blue eyes glared at her from under a mop of jet black hair. "Aleksandr wants him broken?"

Agratiev drew himself up. "You are to send proof that he enjoys degradation. Pictures," he clarified haughtily.

Amy whirled so fast Jake barely saw it. One moment she was studying the kid, the next she was holding Agratiev by the throat and pushing him up against the wall. "I said I would overlook your rudeness once," she snarled. "Tell me why I shouldn't enjoy breaking you too and thank Aleksandr for both his gifts?"

Agratiev struggled for a moment before apparently realising he wasn't going to break out of Amy's grip. "Aleksandr Rostov values me," he said hoarsely. "He will be angered if you take me. He will not cancel your debt." Jake couldn't help but feel a vicious joy at the slight note of fear in his voice.

Amy relented slightly, though she didn't let go. "If I do what he asks, Aleksandr will consider the debt paid in full?" she asked, apparently considering the alternatives. Agratiev nodded as best he could. Amy let the moment draw out, then put him down. "Very well," she said, halfway across the room before he could react. "You can tell my dear friend Aleksandr that I will train the boy. Does he want him back when I'm done?"

Agratiev shrugged, rubbing at his throat. "He does not care," he said.

Amy smiled. It wasn't nice. "Then I won't keep you any longer," she said. "He'll be waiting for your report. Hugo!" The door opened and one of the bouncers looked in hesitantly. "Show the gentleman out," Amy ordered.

Jake took a shaky breath when the door closed behind Agratiev, but Xander held up a hand before he could say anything. 'Wait,' Xander mouthed. It was a good thirty seconds before the door opened again and Justin slipped in. "He's gone," he said, and Xander relaxed.

"OK," Xander said, all business. "Drake, you take Amy somewhere private and get her out of disguise. I don't want anyone here knowing how you do what you do." He looked meaningfully towards the coffin, and Draco nodded. "The rest of us will get the kid out of the box and figure things out from there."

Jake turned his attention to the boy, not paying much attention to Amy's promise to be quick. "I really hope you speak English," he said, starting to work on the gag. The boy glared at him defiantly. "It's OK, we're the good guys."

"Long story short," Xander said attacking the wrist straps, "the woman you friend Micky thought he was delivering you to is dead. We were here to make sure no one else was picking up her business. We'll get you out of here just as soon as we can be sure word won't get back to your kidnapper."

The boy — Nikolai — was looking more confused than defiant when Jake got the gag out. Jake didn't understand what was said, but he could guess. "You're safe," he confirmed.

"And healthy," Justin added. "No broken bones, at any rate. I'll give you a proper check-up once we've got you out of here."

Nikolai grimaced. "Take me to my father," he demanded.

"No can do," Xander said calmly. "You aren't in Russia any more and you haven't got a passport." They didn't know that for sure, but there wasn't anywhere on the kid's designer T-shirt and jeans to hide it. "Sorting that out with your embassy will make enough noise to alert Rostov. We'll figure something out, but it'll take a while."

"We could call him, though," Jake suggested. "Let him know you're safe?"

"Da. Do that."

"You got his phone number?" Xander asked dubiously.

"My phone..." Nikolai's face fell. Jake had watched enough police dramas to guess that an efficient kidnapper would ditch something as trackable as a mobile phone as quickly as possible.

Xander sighed. "I guess I could ask Willow to dig," he said. He pulled out his own phone and moved away.

"Where am I?" Nikolai asked as Jake and Justin loosened enough straps to let him sit up. "You are American, yes?"

"We're English," Jake told him. "You're in Chester, England."

Nikolai frowned. "Why is England?" he asked. "Rostov has no business in England. Why here?"

"Astarte," Jake sighed. Nikolai didn't seem to recognise the name. Jake paused, trying to figure out how to explain things, and Justin dropped a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "How much do you know about what was going to happen here?"

"They threaten me," Nikolai said with a shrug, "make Father stop. Maybe they hurt me if they are stupid." He didn't seem bothered, as if it was nothing much. It didn't seem like it had dawned on him that he could ever come to real harm.

"Yeah, if only," Justin said harshly.

Jake undid the last strap and settled back on his haunches. He took a deep breath. "Astarte, the woman that used to own this place, she used to turn people into sex slaves. She was very, very good at it. She would take someone unwilling like you or me, and once she was finished we would do anything she wanted and look like we enjoyed it."

Nikolai snorted dismissively. "I know how to make women happy."

"And men?"

Jake didn't understand the furious burst of Russian, but he was prepared to bet it was highly insulting. "I will never—"

"That's what I thought," Draco interrupted softly. Jake started; he hadn't noticed Draco and Amy come back into the room. "She had me for months, and I raped Jake like it was nothing."

"And I let him," Jake said soberly, "after she'd had me for an _hour._ " He rose and put an apologetic hand on Draco's shoulder.

Nikolai rose with him, somewhat shaky on his feet after being tied down for so long. Justin quickly steadied him, and got a glare for his troubles. "How did you escape?" Nikolai asked, a little fear creeping into his voice. He was taking this seriously at last, Jake thought.

"We didn't," Draco said bleakly. "Amy and Mr Harris had to break in and kill her to free us."

"Who?" Nikolai asked, looking between them.

Jake belatedly realised that they hadn't introduced themselves yet. "This is Amy Barnes and Draco Malfoy," he said. "I'm Jake Dean and this here is Justin Burton." My boyfriend, he didn't add. No point in throwing too much information at the kid too quickly. "The man with the phone is Xander Harris."

Xander was approaching them, as it happened, looking serious. "Your dad wants to talk to you," he said, holding the phone out to Nikolai. They all stepped back to give the kid a little more privacy, not that he needed it when none of them spoke Russian. At least Jake assumed none of them spoke Russian, though he wouldn't have been surprised to find that Xander did. He had certainly heard the man swearing in something other than English.

"It seems Gregor Kraslov is not a nice guy," Xander murmured once Nikolai was fully focused on his conversation. "He heads up one of the Russian mobs and he's earned his place."

"So not actually any better than Rostov, then?" Amy asked.

Xander shrugged. "He loves his kid, though. He is extremely grateful that we pulled Nikolai's ass out of the fire, and I guess whoever runs the Council's Russian operations will be getting favours off him for years."

"There's a 'but' coming, I can hear it," Amy said, looking narrowly at Xander.

Xander nodded. "Rostov kidnapped the kid despite all the bodyguards and security measures daddy dearest had in place. He asked as a special favour if—"

They all winced as Nikolai's side of the phone conversation became loud and angry. "He's just been told he's not going home?" Jake guessed.

"You agreed to this?" Amy hissed.

"Kraslov is not the kind of guy you say no to without a damn good reason and a lot of backup," Xander replied. "Besides, he's kind of got a point. Junior is a lot safer hidden away here while the mob war is going on."

Jake frowned. "Where is he going to stay?" he asked. "He's not exactly going to be inconspicuous the way he's carrying on."

"We'll put him up in Grove House once it's done," Xander said, but that won't be for a couple of weeks yet. In the mean time I was thinking maybe he could use Craig's room?"

"Sorry," Jake said, "Mum's fostering a kid and he's got that room. He's the sort to pry, so we can't take Nikolai unless you want the whole village knowing by lunchtime." Jake couldn't say he knew Newt well, but he knew enough not to want him anywhere near trouble.

"Rats," Xander said. He looked hopefully at Amy.

Amy gave him a long-suffering look in return. "You think he's going to be OK with sleeping on our sofa? I don't care who he is, I'm not turfing Mark out of his bedroom for anyone."

"I could transfigure it," Draco offered.

Xander shook his head vigorously. "No using magic where he can see it," he said. "We don't want him exposed to any more Scooby stuff than we have to."

"Good luck with that," Justin murmured. "Here he comes now."

Nikolai stalked over to them and handed the phone back to Xander. "I am to obey you as if you are my father," he said sulkily.

"I know, it sucks," Xander sighed. "Think of it as a holiday. Uh, except you're going to have to rough it for a few days."

"What is 'rough it'?" Nikolai asked, frowning.

Jake chuckled at the expression on Xander's face. "That one's all yours," he said. "I'll call us a taxi and tell Grace he can have his club back."

Today had been nothing like he had expected, Jake reflected as he left. He'd gone into a place that had broken his spirit expecting to have to fight that trauma off constantly. Instead he'd found a place so incompetently run that it annoyed him, and then he'd used what had been done to him here to fool a very dangerous man. Jake didn't believe in all-knowing 'higher powers', but he couldn't help being suspicious of the timing. Why had Agratiev just happened to turn up on the day that Xander had finally got round to checking on the _Pole Star_? Xander often said that he didn't believe in coincidences any more, and this was one hell of a coincidence. Was someone or something arranging things behind the scenes?

Well, they'd see. They could keep a close eye on the kid, maybe even knock some sense into him. And if this was all part of someone's long term plans, they'd deal with it.


	7. Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt wasn't the only one to have a chat after he and Lauren parted. Gaz is in so much trouble. Nikolai just is so much trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people may find some of the language used by some of the characters in this chapter offensive. The characters concerned certainly intend it to be offensive!

"See you tomorrow," Lauren called. She smiled to herself as she watched Newt walk away across the village square. She was her own person and she didn't need anyone to take care of her, but having someone like Newt... He really got her, understood where her poetry was coming from, and he was sensitive with it. If she'd had any doubts about him being the perfect boyfriend, the way he kissed would have put an end to them. If Lauren had any say in the matter — and she did — sex would be on the cards soon.

"You can do better than him."

Lauren whipped round and glared into the alleyway on general principles. When she saw Gaz lurking there she glared harder. "What?" she demanded, sure she must have misheard.

"Newt," Gaz said. "You can do better than him."

"If you think you're better than anything, you're delusional," Lauren sneered. Gaz was a bully, pure and simple. He'd use any stupid prejudice as long as it let him hurt other people, and never care a damn about anything else.

"Like he's got anything that makes him great," Gaz replied challengingly.

"He understands," Lauren shot back. "He's wandering around with his eyes wide open unlike some people, and he knows where I'm coming from. He doesn't need to be told how society tries to beat us into its narrow categories, he already know it and backs me up a hundred percent."

"Sounds great, if you want a doormat," Gaz jeered. He sauntered forwards, hands in his pockets. "What you need is someone who will challenge you. Someone who doesn't believe the teachers but doesn't take your word for things either."

Lauren couldn't believe the nerve of the guy. "You think you're such a rebel? All you've done is swap one set of prejudices for an even narrower set."

"You so sure of that?" Gaz smirked as he drifted closer. "Someone as alive as you, you don't need a boy," he practically whispered.

Lauren waited impassively until he near enough, then kneed him in the bollocks. "I certainly don't need you," she said sweetly as he doubled over. "Have a nice night."

That was weird she thought to herself. People like Gaz usually only had any use for people like her as targets. She could imagine how it was supposed to go, him stringing her along like some love-sick idiot until he reached the punchline and utterly humiliated her. She wasn't stupid enough to fall for anything like that. Maybe she could turn it round, string him along before humiliating him, but honestly he wasn't worth it.

At least she and Newt could have a good laugh at this in the morning.

* * *

That could have gone better, Gaz thought to himself as he slowly and painfully straightened up.

By rights he should hate Lauren. Black and proud, she was everything he'd been brought up to believe was wrong with the world. Her family took work from honest people — her brother was a policeman, and if that didn't tell you what a joke the law was, nothing would. She should mean nothing to him, less than nothing because of what she stood for. Taking and taking and never giving back.

Except that she wasn't like that. Lauren was strong and she didn't take. She didn't want anything from a society she despised as much as Gaz did. She was fire and passion and she was going to change the world, and Gaz wanted to be right there with her when she did.

He was so fucked.

The only thing wrong with Lauren as far as Gaz was concerned was that she hung around with Newt. It was sickening really, watching him cosy up to her. How someone as forthright as her put up with someone as wet and useless as Newt, Gaz had no idea. What she needed was a real man, not because she needed protecting but because no one else could keep up with her.

He'd just have to keep trying, Gaz decided, turning back down the little alleyway. He wanted Lauren, but the only way he was going to get her was if she wanted him back. And the only way that would happen was if he could prove himself to her and somehow not get beaten to a pulp by his family.

Gaz came out of the alley, and immediately found himself shoved roughly against the wall. "What the fuck was that?" someone demanded harshly.

It was Mr Townsend, Gaz realised with a sinking heart. Des, his father's best mate. Someone who worked under a coloured headmaster he hated just to find ways to bring the man down, and did a bloody good job of fooling the rest of the world.

"I'm leading her on," Gaz said quickly. If he could persuade Des that he was taking a leaf out of his book... "I mean, I haven't got all the details worked out yet, but if she falls for me it'll be that much easier to really humiliate her."

Des let the silence stretch out as he stared at Gaz. "You are so full of shit," he said eventually. Gaz opened his mouth to protest his innocence but was slammed against the wall so hard his head rang, then dropped to the ground.

"Don't try to be clever, Gaz," Des said disgustedly. "You aren't smart enough to keep your mouth shut when teachers are around. Stick to violence, you're good at that."

"But sir," Gaz protested. He needed some excuse to talk to Lauren.

Des kicked him sharply. "The thing is," he said in a low, threatening voice, "if you keep hanging out with that girl and her lot, eventually someone's going to mention it down the _Empress._ " Someone by the name of Des Townsend, Gaz would bet, just when his dad would be there propping up the bar. "How do you think your father will react to you sucking up to niggers and poofs?"

He'd lose his shit. Gaz would be lucky to make it out alive, and never mind that Newt wasn't gay. "Shit," he said, and didn't have to fake his look of fear. He needed to think about this. He wanted Lauren, but if he got her his dad would literally kill him.

"Exactly," Des said, smiling unpleasantly. "So you're going to stay away from her unless you've got your gang with you, right?"

Gaz nodded obediently. As he watched Des smile again and saunter off, he seethed inside. He didn't let anyone tell him who he could or couldn't see. Des might be the only teacher who was worth anything, but even he didn't get to do that. There had to be some way out of this, some way to have Lauren and not get the shit kicked out of himself. He would find a way, because no way in hell was he letting Des tell him who he could fall for.

No way in hell.

* * *

"I owe Harry such an enormous apology," Draco murmured.

Nikolai Kraslov, unwanted lodger and arrogant pain in the backside, was holding forth about how big and important his father was. Again. Mark had been enthralled at first, eager to learn things about his new friend, but even he was beginning to get bored with the boasting.

"What do you mean?" Amy murmured back. She handed him a cup of tea as they watched from the kitchen doorway.

Draco took a sip. "When I was at school I was just like that," he said. "My father says this, my father won't stand for that, and so on. Now I know just how aggravating I must have been, I feel like I owe everyone an apology. Harry and his friends especially."

"You were young," Amy told him. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

Draco disagreed, but Mark chose that moment to pipe up. "Conrad owns a manor," he said insistently.

"My father owns the manor," Draco corrected mildly.

"But we've been there," Mark insisted. "We even had tea with your mum."

Draco couldn't help but grin at the memory. Amy had been on her best behaviour and his mother had relaxed her standards considerably, but the culture clash had still been formidable. "We did," he agreed, "When Mother and Amy have recovered we'll do it again." Amy gave him a narrow look, so Draco kissed her on he cheek to show he was joking. Mostly.

Nikolai looked at him curiously. "Why is he call you Conrad?" he asked. "You have a strong name, means Dragon. Why Conrad instead?"

"That's what Astarte decided to call me," Draco replied. He tried to keep his voice level, but he doubted that he would succeed. His memories of that time were so soaked with despair it was bound to leak through. "She gave everyone new names to make sure we knew we were living new lives. It's only since Amy rescued us that I even thought of myself as Draco again."

Nikolai nodded, looking pensive. Then an unpleasant thought seemed to strike him. "Astarte had little Mark?" he asked.

Mark nodded vigorously. "I was a good boy," he said proudly before Draco could think of a tactful way to explain Mark's horrifying upbringing. "I did everything I was told, even when it hurt." Nikolai looked appalled.

"You know that it was wrong of her to tell you to do some of those things, don't you?" Amy said gently. The trouble was that Mark didn't know it, Draco reflected. He was too young to understand what a moral argument was when he simply hadn't been raised that way.

"There were things your body wasn't ready for," he said, trying for a more practical explanation. "She knew that and told you to do them anyway. That was very wrong of her."

"You were..." Nikolai broke off and gabbled some unhappy-sounding Russian at Mark. "Used?" he ventured.

Mark looked at Draco, confused.

"Sex," Draco admitted.

Mark sighed dramatically and slumped back in his seat. "I'm not supposed to talk about sex," he grumbled. "It's like they expect me to know nothing."

"Most people your age do know nothing about sex," Amy pointed out, not for the first time.

Nikolai said something explosive in Russian.

"What did you learn in your lessons today?" Draco said, changing the subject abruptly. The current topic of conversation probably wasn't doing anyone any good, and anyway he was curious to find out how Mark was getting on with the material Amy's headmaster had recommended.

"Computers are amazing," Mark said, sitting back up and practically beaming. "It's like a TV except I can talk back to it."

Draco smiled and nodded as Mark enthused about his day. He could hardly claim to be _au fait_ with computers himself and couldn't really make sense of what had been explained to him, but it seemed that for the moment this 'on-line learning' was working.

Before he could suggest that Mark showed him any of his work, the doorbell rang. Draco looked at Amy quizzically. She shrugged. They weren't expecting anyone, not with the other slayer on patrol tonight. Mindful of the multiple magical and mundane threats that could come calling for any one of them, Draco moved to cover Amy as she went to the door, his had resting lightly on his concealed wand.

He relaxed when Amy opened the door and smiled broadly. "Sasha, I thought you were supposed to be writing that history essay tonight?"

"I was," Sasha said as she stepped inside. "Then Newt came round to make googly eyes at Lauren. I swear they just do it to drive Calvin up the wall. Hello... Conrad, wasn't it?"

"Draco," Draco corrected apologetically. He had met Sasha briefly at Amy's New Year party, and she had reminded him so much of Pansy that it hurt. She was competent, smart, and entirely uninterested in your attempts to make her life more complicated.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. "Really? I could have sworn that you were introduced to me as Conrad."

"You probably were," Draco admitted. "It's a name I was stuck with because it was easier than explaining that most of my mother's family are named for stars and constellations." That was the excuse they had come up with for people who weren't in the know about magic. Draco thought it was a bit weak personally, but then he supposed he'd been trying to fool very intelligent people for most of his life. Certainly Amy's friends hadn't found it overly suspicious.

Sasha eyed him for a long moment. "You're serious," she decided.

"No, he was my second cousin."

Before Sasha could actually hit him for the appalling pun, Nikolai wandered up casually. "Who is this lovely lady?" he rumbled. Trying a little too hard to sound sexy in Draco's opinion.

Amy rolled her eyes. "This is Sasha Valentine," she said, "a school friend of mine. Sash, meet Nikolai Kraslov. We're putting him up until Mr Harris's house is finished."

Sasha looked Nikolai up and down approvingly. "Nice," she said.

"There are two opinions on that," Amy muttered.

Draco expected Nikolai to look put out at that, but it was like water off a duck's back. Nikolai just grinned at Sasha, giving her an appreciative look of his own. "Your name is Sasha for really?" he asked.

Sasha's look went distinctly sceptical. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Nikolai chuckled. "In Russia, it is what you call, knock name?"

"Nickname," Draco said automatically.

"Yes, yes," Nikolai waved away the correction. "Is nickname for Alexander," he finished, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Sasha's look got even narrower. "Was that supposed to be insulting?" she asked coolly. "Are you trying to be funny?"

"Funny, yes," Nikolai said, unperturbed. "But is strong name for strong woman." He looked at Sasha slyly. "Maybe you show me how strong some time?"

"Maybe," Sasha allowed. She went so far as to smile a little. Draco couldn't help but roll his eyes; it was a bad as watching Blaise in action.

"I'd tell you not to flirt in front of impressionable young eyes, but that's a lost cause in this house," Amy sighed. "I thought you came here to get away from flirting?"

"I came here to get away from other people flirting," Sasha countered. "Other people flirting with me is entirely different."

"For you," Draco pointed out.

Mark poked his head around the door and gave Nikolai and Sasha a disgusted look. "Can I watch TV?" he asked Amy.

"Half an hour," Amy said, "then it's time for bed." Mark smiled brightly and vanished back into the living room. Draco made a mental note of the time; Mark was bound to conveniently forget when he was supposed to go and brush his teeth.

"That gives us half an hour to kill before we can claim the sofa," Sasha said speculatively. "How about a drink?"

"No vodka," Nikolai said mournfully. "I look."

"Tea," Amy said firmly, "and please don't do anything I'll have to lie to Calvin about."

It was disturbingly like his happier memories of the Slytherin common room, Draco thought as they sat around the kitchen table. Pansy and Blaise would be horrified to be compared to muggles, but even they would find the wit and humour in this little flat familiar. It felt normal and special at the same time, a strange but comforting combination.

He could get used to this.


	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fletch gets read in. Kieron finally gets to talk to Gaz.

"I'll get it," Fletch said as the doorbell rang. The Ashworths were being brilliant about letting him stay, even if it was just crashing on their sofa, but presuming on their kindness was beginning to grate on him. He didn't have a job so he had no way to pay them back, and that was starting to matter to him. So he did the little things he could: washing up, helping out at the shop as much as Neville would let him (which wasn't much), and being the one to answer the door on a cold winter's night. It wasn't much, but it made him feel better.

It also meant he got to be the one to greet the new girl, Polly. Bonus. "Hi there," he said, giving her what he hoped was a winning smile. "Come inside, you must be freezing."

She gave him a slightly weird look and stayed where she was. Must be trying too hard, Fletch decided, and turned his smile down a bit. "Is Josh in?" she asked.

Fletch turned his smile down some more in disappointment. "Sure," he said, and shouted for Josh.

"Polly," Josh said surprisedly, appearing promptly in the hallway. "Uh, hi?"

For him, she stepped inside. Fletch managed not to roll his eyes. Why was it that pretty girls never gave him a second look but fell over themselves to please Josh?"

"I found this while I was patrolling," Polly said. "Mr Harris said I should show it to you."

'This' turned out to be a big coin, or something like that, which she held up in a clear plastic bag. Josh looked bemused, but turned and shouted up the stairs. "Ste, I'm going to need your help." There was a muffled yell from the bathroom. Josh turned back to Polly and smiled. Then he looked at Fletch and his smile faltered. "Sorry Fletch," he said quietly, "this is kind of private. Would you mind...?"

Fletch was hurt. He and Josh were friends as well as cousins, but here he was being kicked out of whatever this was while someone like Ste was invited in with open arms. He was about to complain when Rhys showed up at the top of the stairs and gave Josh a scornful look.

"You're going to stink the place up again, aren't you?" he said.

"It's not that bad," Josh said defensively.

"Not bad?" Rhys said incredulously. "It'll smell the place out for weeks!"

Fletch heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door opened behind Rhys. "The only thing we ever do inside is the seeing spell," Ste said, patiently for him, "and that doesn't stink as much as your deodorant." He noticed Fletch and seemed to get flustered. "At least that's what the rulebook says," he added hurriedly.

"What rulebook?" Fletch asked, thoroughly lost. "Josh, is this some kind of _game?_ "

"I, er," Josh stuttered. Rhys sneered and went back to his room. "Yeah it's a, um, game. I didn't think you'd be interested because... because..."

"You are so pants at this," Ste said, coming down the stairs. He turned to Fletch. "Look, this is none of your business. Just keep your nose out and there won't be any trouble."

So not a game then, Fletch thought. "No," he told Ste angrily, "I'm not keeping my nose out of whatever this is. Just because you're with Josh now doesn't mean you get to drag him into—"

"I dragged Ste into this," Josh interrupted sadly.

"Like I was kicking and screaming the whole way," Ste retorted gently.

Fletch genuinely didn't care whose fault it was, he'd had beyond enough of this. "What is going on?" he demanded.

Josh sighed. "Let's go through to the kitchen and I'll explain," he said.

It took a while. Fletch's head was swimming with details by the time Josh was done explaining, but as far as he could see it boiled down to three things: fairy stories were real, Josh and Ste could do magic, and Polly and Amy were superheroes.

"That's insane," he said eventually.

"Welcome to my life," Josh told him. "In the mean time, what's this thing you've got, Polly?"

Very gingerly, Polly tipped the coin out of the bag and onto the kitchen table. "I found it in Oakview Cemetery," she explained. "Something had been digging into one of the old-looking graves. I looked in, and I could feel something, like my skin was all slimy. That's normally a bad sign."

"Hmm," Josh said, studying it carefully.

Fletch couldn't see anything special about it in particular. The face-up side had what looked like a lop-sided star and a lot of tiny writing. "It's a bit big for a coin," he said, reaching out to flip it over.

Polly slapped his hand away before he could pick it up. "First rule of dealing with weird shit," she said, "Don't touch anything you don't have to." Fletch gave her a hurt look; she didn't have to slap so hard.

Josh pulled his phone out while Ste rummaged in the cupboards. He snapped a couple of pictures, carefully turned the coin over with a couple of biros and snapped a couple more. "I'll send these to Mr Wells," he said, "see if he can find something in his books."

"They have books for this sort of thing?" Fletch asked.

Ste snorted. "Turns out sometimes people write stuff down that isn't a total waste of time. Who'd have guessed?" Fletch gave him a narrow look; Ste was a fine one to talk, dropping out of school at the first opportunity. At least Fletch was doing A levels, even if he wasn't exactly doing them well.

Josh put his phone away. "Right, let's have a proper look," he said. Ste put a little metal pan with some smouldering incense on the table and sat opposite Josh. They closed their eyes and went still. After a few seconds Fletch noticed that they were breathing in time with each other. That was creepy, but when they started speaking completely in synch he nearly freaked out. "We see how magic flows through the world," they intoned — there really was no other word for it — then opened their eyes and started peering at the coin as if nothing unusual had happened.

"What the hell was that?" Fletch demanded.

"The first thing we ever learned," Josh said distractedly, "a way of looking at magic." He sat back and looked vaguely at Fletch. "Think of the power behind magic like water. It's got a flow like a river, and pools and eddies and all that sort of thing. What we did was kind of like dropping dye in the water so we can see what it's doing, except we're seeing dye that's already there."

So not much like dropping anything anywhere, Fletch thought, trying to sort through his confusion. "I guess that looks something like a glass of water, then," he tried.

"You do not want to be drinking that," Ste said. He was crouched down so his eyes were level with the table top, watching the coin with great suspicion. "It's really dark and sort of greasy-looking."

"Magic normally show up bright green," Josh explained, studying the coin again. "Black is bad news." He picked up a pen.

"It looks like it's steaming or something," Ste reported.

Josh paused. "That must be what Polly picked up as a slimy feeling." Fletch surreptitiously rubbed his fingers together. He couldn't feel anything.

"But I could feel it even when it was in the plastic bag," Polly said.

"It's not actually vapour," Josh explained, "that's just how the ritual translates it for us. The same way you aren't actually feeling anything on your skin, it's just the way your brain is interpreting the new magical sense you got when you became a Slayer."

"Yeah, I'm still not used to that," Poly admitted. "It's good that this place is so quiet. This is the first time since I've been here that I've felt like I needed a shower right now."

Josh raised his eyebrows. "It's as that bad in London?" he asked.

"You have no idea. There were areas that were just yuck to walk into. Some of them seemed like really nice people, but they made my skin crawl. Round here all I get is the occasional twinge at school, probably some kids with a demon parent or something."

"It's school," Ste said dismissively. "That's pretty much a definition of evil." Josh swatted him on the shoulder.

"Wait, demons can have kids?" Fletch asked. The thought was more than a bit alarming.

Ste smirked. "When a mommy demon and a daddy demon love each other very much," he began.

Josh swatted him again. "Apparently some demons are close enough to human to interbreed," he said, like it was nothing to worry about.

"But..." Fletch had watched horror movies like any other teenager with a TV, he knew all about supernatural evil looking like innocent children. "Aren't they dangerous?"

"Mostly not," Josh said, turning back to the coin. "The really nasty demons are more likely to eat people than make babies with them. The kids can't often do more than turn blue when they sneeze."

Polly nodded. "One thing our teachers kept reminding us of," she said. "A lot of demons come from places so nasty we might as well call them hell and are one hundred percent evil, but a lot are just people with the weirdness turned up. It doesn't mean they can't be dangerous, but so can a normal human being."

"Oh, that's interesting," Josh said as Fletch thought about that. He was examining the pen with which he had just poked the coin.

"What happened?" Polly asked.

"It was like a little bit of the magic felt along the pen," Ste explained, "like it was looking for something."

"Probing," Josh agreed. "It must be keyed somehow, maybe looking for a certain sort of user?"

"How do we work out what?" Ste asked.

Josh hummed to himself. "There must be some sort of pattern," he mused. "I wonder..."

Fletch just knew what would happen next. Josh couldn't resist a mystery, and the first thing he would wonder was if the coin was looking for a human being. Then, because it might be dangerous, Josh would have to try for himself because he wouldn't willingly put other people in danger. Except that was a ridiculous way to think now that people were coming to Josh for answers. These days Josh was important. Fletch... wasn't. So when Josh leaned forwards, Fletch reached out and touched the coin first.

"Ow!" he said, pulling his hand back quickly. "That stung." He went to suck his sore finger.

"No, don't," Josh said quickly. Polly grabbed Fletch by the wrist, in case he hadn't got the message.

"Ow, again," Fletch said pointedly. Polly looked a little sheepish and relaxed her grip so that Fletch could no longer feel his bones grinding together. "So what did you see?" he asked.

"It was more interested in you," Ste reported, "but your aura or whatever did not like it at all." He didn't sound impressed, but then this was Ste. Sarcastic bastard was his default setting.

"And it's left your finger looking greasy," Josh said, sounding equally unimpressed. "Get out onto the patio and don't touch anything. Ste, get water. I'll find the sage. We're going to do a cleansing right now."

Polly pretty much dragged Fletch to the back door, making sure his magically greasy finger didn't touch anything else. "That was really stupid," she grumbled.

Fletch shrugged. "Someone was going to do it," he said, "and hey, I've got a pretty girl holding my hand." He gave her his best smile.

She smacked him on the back of the head.

* * *

It happened so fast Kieron barely had time to react. One minute he was hurrying along one of the school's many identical corridors, trying to work out where the Religious Studies classroom was. The next, there was a shout of "Fag!" and someone collided with him. For a heart-stopping moment he thought they were shouting at him, that they _knew,_ then his balance went and he fell, slamming another pupil into the wall as he hit the floor.

"Are you alright, sir?" the boy who had knocked into him asked, climbing back to his feet. He was a sixth-former by the look of it, short and slightly built.

"I'm fine," Kieron told him, blinking in an effort to clear his head. The ringing noise he could hear was the school bell, he belatedly realised. He'd have bruises, but he'd had worse, in sadly similar situations.

The boy who had hit the wall wasn't nearly so well off. He was a skinhead — the same kid who had so obligingly given Kieron feed lines during the assembly he'd done a few weeks ago — and he looked seriously dazed. "How many fingers am I holding up?" Kieron asked.

The boy peered at him. "Two," he said, and winced.

That looked like a possible concussion, Kieron thought to himself. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Gaz," the boy replied before narrowing his eyes. "What the fuck do you care for?"

"You hit the wall pretty hard," Kieron explained, "and I don't care how tough you are, if it took you that long to remember to be insulting, something's not right." He turned back to the sixth-former, now the only other person in the corridor. "And you are?"

"Josh, sir. Josh Ashworth."

"OK, Josh Sir Josh Ashworth, could you find Mrs Higgins's class and tell her I'm going to be late. Then... Gaz, what class are you supposed to be in?"

"English," Gaz said grumpily. "With Miss Hayton."

Kieron nodded. "Tell Miss Hayton I'm taking Gaz to the school nurse," he told Josh.

"Huh? No, I'm OK," Gaz protested. Kieron turned to tell him otherwise, but Josh beat him to the punch.

"You don't mess around with head injuries," he said firmly, "not unless you want to fall over and die. Trust me, my mum's a nurse. You get that checked out right now." He paused and smirked. "Think of it as a bonus free period."

"And I'm your cast-iron alibi," Kieron added. "Josh, if any of the teachers give you trouble over this, come by the staff room during break and I'll sort it out. In fact, come by the staff room anyway. You'll need to report this."

Josh looked rebellious. "I can handle them, sir," he said.

"I'm sure you can," Kieron replied, "but it isn't just about you any more. This happened in front of me, and hurt Gaz here into the bargain. If the school and I don't do something about it, we're saying that homophobic bullying is OK and collateral damage doesn't matter. I don't think any of us want that."

Josh took a while to relent, but eventually he sighed and nodded. "I'll be there, sir," he said grudgingly, and left to deliver his messages.

"Right," Kieron said to Gaz as he helped him upright. "Where is the nurse's office anyway?"

The school nurse's office turned out to be on the first floor. Kieron made a mental note to point out to the headmaster the problems this would cause someone with a leg injury. As it was, he noticed Gaz climbed the stairs a good deal more cautiously than the average teenager would. "How are you feeling? he asked quietly.

Gaz mumbled something indistinct that was probably supposed to be a lie about being fine. Kieron stopped and looked at him sceptically.

"Why do you care about the bullying?" Gaz burst out. "I mean, isn't being gay supposed to be wrong or something?" He seemed genuinely confused and a bit angry with it.

"Some people do think that two men loving each other is a sin," Kieron said carefully. "Others think that a genuine expression of love can't be wrong. The Holy Father hasn't pronounced one way or the other," thank you, Lord, "so we have a certain amount of leeway. Besides, bullying is never OK."

"Not even—?"

"Not even bullying bullies," Kieron said with a grin, deliberately misinterpreting where Gaz had probably been going. "Have you heard the story of the Good Samaritan?"

Gaz frowned. "The one about this bloke helping out a stranger?" he asked.

That was a depressingly common description of the parable even amongst his parishioners, Kieron thought. "The Samaritans were people that the Romans had settled in land that the Jews thought belonged to them. It was like with the Israelis and Palestinians today; there weren't many people the Jews thought less of than the Samaritans and they weren't afraid to let them know it. If he'd been conscious, the man who had been robbed and left for dead would have seriously considered refusing the Samaritan's help. Couldn't let the dirty Samaritan touch him," Kieron finished in a snooty accent.

Gaz looked at him narrowly, hopefully thinking of people he'd been told to think of as dirty. "What's that got to do with bullying?" he demanded.

"Jesus told the story because a lawyer asked him who his neighbours were," Kieron explained. "The law said to love your neighbour, did that just mean the family living across the road from you? Jesus's point was that everyone is your neighbour, even the people you think are beneath contempt or who bully you. You don't have to agree with them or let them walk all over you, but you do have to treat them the same as anyone else you care about. And you wouldn't bully anyone you cared about, would you?"

Gaz immediately looked shifty. Kieron pretended not to notice. That hadn't been meant as a trick question, but he supposed that 'pulling pigtails' was common enough among teenagers. "The rest of the sermon will have to wait for for Sunday," he teased, reaching for the nurse's door. "Let's make sure that hard head of your is intact, OK?"


	9. Open House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt has a disconcerting conversation. Grove House is ready for occupants. Nikolai is suspicious.

Brilliant, Newt thought to himself, here comes the one-man moron brigade.

Gaz had been quieter than normal today. Apparently he'd hit his head, and presumably killed off his remaining brain cell. That didn't mean he'd left Newt and Lauren alone at lunchtime, though; his posturing might have been more pathetic than normal but he still did it, his tame pack of hyenas laughing on cue. Newt had actually entertained the hope that Mr Townsend would stop the verbal harassment for once, but no. The teacher had stopped, sniffed the air and turned after a bunch of sixth-formers. Someone must have been wearing illicit perfume, clearly a more serious breach of the rules.

Newt hadn't missed the fact that he was the main target of all this. Gaz made a show of catching him and Lauren together, but Newt was always the one he went after. It wasn't exactly unexpected. Lauren had told him about Gaz's hopeless come-on, and he hadn't know whether to laugh or cry at the craziness of it. It was just annoying as hell, and Newt couldn't shake the feeling that Lauren enjoyed being fought over.

Now here was Gaz wandering across the village square towards Newt as if he didn't have a care in the world. The street lights shadowed and softened the smirk Newt knew was on his face. Run away little boy, that smirk would be saying. Newt stayed put.

"Too many eyes here," Gaz said as he sauntered up. "Let's go talk somewhere else."

"So you can beat me up with no witnesses?" Newt asked as Gaz walked past. "I don't think so."

Gaz stopped, turned back to him and shrugged. "Don't have to beat you up if no one's looking."

"That's never stopped you before."

"Like I said, too many eyes," Gaz said, smiling lazily. "If word got back to my dad that I was making nice to Lauren, he'd beat the crap out of me. Maybe even put me in hospital." He sounded remarkably unconcerned about the whole business.

"My heart bleeds for you," Newt told him sarcastically. "Though if that's your idea of flirting with her, I've got nothing to worry about."

"Who said I was after her?"

It was tossed out so lightly it caught Newt completely by surprise. He could feel his cheeks heating as Gaz gave him a long look up and down and another lazy smile. "You did," he said when he could get his voice working again. "You came on to Lauren. Besides, I wouldn't give you the time of day if you were the last person on Earth."

"Huh."

Newt's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'Huh'?" he demanded.

"I knew all this tolerance and acceptance you talk about was bullshit," Gaz said. "Being gay's all well and good until someone comes on to you." He smirked again.

"Being gay is all well and good," Newt said angrily. "It just happens I'm straight."

"You so sure of that?" Gaz shot back. Newt sputtered; he literally could not believe Gaz had just said that. "I bet you've never even kissed a man," Gaz continued.

"I'm sure as hell not kissing you," Newt retorted.

Gaz's grin widened. "You keep telling yourself that," he said before turning to go. "See you tomorrow."

Newt didn't say anything. He was seething too much. What the hell had just happened, he asked himself. Gaz had thrown the things at him he normally threw at Gaz, because Gaz's tiny mind couldn't cope with people not fitting into his arbitrary boxes. Except apparently he could, and Newt was having a hard time coping with that. He needed to talk this out with someone. Eli. He needed Eli.

Eli, when Newt found him much later, was no help at all. "Maybe he does have a thing for you," he said when he stopped laughing.

"Oh come on," Newt said. "This is Gaz we're talking about, Mr Macho Skinhead. He's no more gay than I am."

"Sounds like he's got a theory on that," Eli snickered.

Newt glared at him. "It's got to be some sick plan," he insisted. "He must have realised that trying it on with Lauren wasn't going to work, so now he's trying to freak me out."

Eli considered that. "Is it working?" he asked.

"Yes!" Newt didn't even have to think about that. "I still want to punch his face in. If it was any other guy I might even be flattered despite not being interested. Gaz, though? That's just revolting."

"The way I see it," Eli said, "you've got two choices. You can carry on freaking out and letting him make all the running."

"Yeah, that's not happening."

"Or you can call his bluff."

Newt frowned. Eli had better not be suggesting...

"How far do you think he'd be prepared to go for this?" Eli asked. OK, Newt thought, he was suggesting that. It wasn't a bad idea now he thought about it. Gaz wasn't the kind of person to think through his plans if they got more complicated than 'beat up the other guy'.

"He couldn't cope with being kissed," Newt decided. "I don't want to kiss him, but that's because he's a vile toad. If it freaked him out, I could go with that."

"There you are then," Eli said cheerfully. "Next time he comes on to you, lay one on him and watch his head explode."

Newt grinned at his best friend. "Thanks for helping me get my head on straight," he said.

"No problem, kiddo," Eli told him. "That's what friends are for. Now where's this place you're planning to take your girl?"

* * *

They were keeping things from him.

Well of course they were, Nikolai told himself. Whoever these strange people were, they didn't work for his father and they wouldn't want someone as powerful as Gregor Ilyich knowing everything about them. Nikolai could appreciate that. He was still going to find out everything he could, but he could appreciate wanting secrets. It would serve them right for not treating him properly.

And he definitely hadn't been treated properly. When he had understood that sleeping on the sofa wasn't a one night affair, Nikolai had thought he was being entirely reasonable in insisting that they got him a hotel room. It would have dented his allowance from his father, but not seriously. Harris, the American he had been ordered to obey, hadn't seen it that way. He had flat out refused, claiming they couldn't keep him safe. When Nikolai had threatened to do it himself, Harris hadn't even brought up his father's orders. He had merely pointed out that Nikolai had no money and no cards, and that when the card his people were creating for Nikolai arrived he might have other uses for the money.

Harris had been right, damn him. Nikolai had not been pleased to discover how little money was in the account set aside for him. He had barely been able to afford a comfortingly heavy neck chain, even of inferior quality gold. Treating the beautiful Sasha to a night out had been a stretch. Paying for a remotely decent hotel room was out of the question. Draco, the English lordling who for some reason was also living in this tiny place, tried to console him with the idea that he was supposed to be hiding from his father's enemies, and none of them would think to look for him here. There was, as Nikolai had sharply remarked, a reason for that.

The truth was Nikolai didn't want to be hiding at all. He wanted to be home with his father. Fighting for his father. He didn't say anything of course; long experience had taught him no good came of disobeying his father. Being stuck here, worse yet _hiding_ from Rostov's minions in case they noticed he wasn't still a captive, well it was as bad as being a captive in the first place. And Nikolai couldn't even get his frustration out by hitting someone.

At least one of his problems was going away, he thought as he looked at Grove House. In the spring sunshine it almost looked attractive. Perhaps the architect had been Russian.

"I have my own bed, yes?" he asked, careful for once to get the English right. Stupid language.

"Yes," Harris said too quickly. Nikolai narrowed his eyes. "We just need to wait for... Ah, here they are."

Three young men carrying backpacks and suitcases had turned up the driveway. They didn't look like anything special, just boys around Nikolai's age. Then again Amy Barnes hadn't looked like anything special, but she had flawlessly deceived a man who would have killed her in a heartbeat. What had he fallen into, Nikolai wondered, not for the first time? Was this some kind of training centre for young British agents? Or was Harris's interest in boys more sinister?

"Morning, Mr H," one of the boys said in the impenetrable local accent. He was medium height and dark haired, and more importantly looking at Nikolai with great suspicion. Oddly, that made Nikolai feel a good deal better.

"Morning guys," Harris said cheerfully. "Ready to move into your new home?"

"So ready," the tallest one said enthusiastically. "Just tell me there's a bed with my name on it."

Harris looked skywards. "It's like nobody trusts me," he said.

"It's like we know you," the last boy said, smiling despite the insult. "And you must be Nikolai. Amy's told us all about you."

Nikolai looked at the hand stuck out towards him and declined to shake it. "She has not told me about you," he said pointedly.

"My bad," Harris said. "I was kinda hoping you'd be back with your dad before we got this far. Anyway, these are Josh Ashworth, Ste Hay and Jamie Fletcher, right?"

"Call me Fletch," the tall one said. He didn't so much offer his hand as grab Nikolai's and pump vigorously.

"Guys," Harris continued, "this is Nikolai Kraslov. He was kidnapped and brought here because his father's enemies are that sort of people. Fortunately we were in the right place at the right time to scam the kidnappers, so they've got no clue he's wandering around free. It's too dangerous for him to go home, though."

Hay looked at Nikolai narrowly again. "Russian mafia?" he asked Harris.

Nikolai bristled. "Bratva," he said. "Is different. Mafia is American."

"Actually the Mafia are Sicilian," Fletcher said. "Some of them just emigrated to America and took the family business with them." Everyone stared at him, and Nikolai quietly filed away another piece of evidence that these people had intelligence training.

"What?" Fletcher said. "Oh come on, you must have seen _The Godfather._ "

"Right." Harris let the word stretch out in disbelief.

"Whatever," Hay said dismissively. "You're OK with this?" He sounded as dubious as Nikolai felt.

"Kraslov senior didn't give any of us much choice," Harris replied. He gave Nikolai an apologetic grimace. "Giles doesn't like it, but he figures that the people at the top of the Bratwurst—"

"Bratva," Nikolai corrected.

"—probably know about things that go bump in the night," Harris finished. Nikolai had no idea what that was supposed to mean. The others apparently did.

"Are you sure of that?" Hay asked sceptically.

Harris shrugged. "It's not proof, but the kidnapper was taking him to Astarte."

"Who?" Fletcher asked. Curiously the name didn't seem to mean anything to any of them.

"The succubus that had Draco."

Nikolai guessed that 'succubus' must be an insulting word for a woman. Stupid language. It seemed to be enough to clue Hay and Ashworth in.

"That's not good," Ashworth said slowly, his eyes wide.

"What," Fletcher said, still looking confused, "Draco as in Amy's boyfriend Draco?"

"Yeah," Harris told him. "To hear him tell it, he was a total brat before she got her claws into him. Now..." Now Draco was quiet, efficient, and seemed to have to nerve himself up to express his opinions about anything. Nikolai did not want to think about what must have happened to him. He had been sceptical at first, but if it was an act it was one Draco kept up all the time. Nikolai was beginning to believe that he really had had a very lucky escape.

Fletcher scratched his head. "Okay," he said slowly, "I'm going to assume this is another one of those things I really don't want to know about and carry on in blissful ignorance. House?" he finished plaintively.

"House," Harris confirmed. He seemed nervous again for no reason Nikolai could fathom. "I'll give you the grand tour later," he continued, shepherding them inside, "but I'm guessing you want to see your rooms first."

"Heck, yes," Hay said happily. Ashworth grinned at him and Fletcher rolled his eyes.

"Polly moved her stuff in last night after patrol," Harris told them. It was an odd thing to say. Nikolai had met her briefly, and she had impressed him as little as he had seemed to impress her. She was just a girl, what was she doing patrolling? Whatever 'patrolling' meant in this place.

"That reminds me," Harris continued. "Fletch, you are not allowed in Polly's bedroom. Ever."

"She'll come round," Fletcher said cheerily.

"Yeah, but I won't," Harris retorted, "and Andrew and I have the bedroom opposite." He lead the way upstairs while Nikolai contemplated sneaking Sasha in. Probably not smart if this really was a secret training school, not that that was going to stop him.

At the top of the stairs Harris turned right and led them round the corner into a short corridor. "OK, here we are," he said. "The bathroom's at the end, you'll be sharing that. Josh, Ste, I figured the room on the right would be good for you."

"Any room is fantastic," Ashworth replied. "Thanks again for letting us sponge of the Council like this."

"It's not like you haven't earned it," Harris told him. "Besides its got to be better than your parents' place for when Draco's Ministry-types decide to drop round."

"That's nice," Hay said unsympathetically as Ashworth shuddered. "We're going to settle in now. Don't wait up for us." With that he grabbed Ashworth's arm, pulled him into the room and shut the door firmly.

Harris chuckled. "That leaves—" He broke off as Fletcher opened the door opposite and walked in without waiting for permission. Nikolai snorted. His father would never tolerate that sort of presumption.

"Where is my room?" he asked.

Harris' grin became a grimace. He indicated the room Fletcher had just entered. "You're sharing with Fletch," Harris said before Nikolai could insist that he removed the boy.

Nikolai couldn't believe it. Everyone knew the English were polite, effete and of no consequence in the modern world, and yet they were treating him like this? When he told his father how they had behaved... "Unacceptable," he snapped.

"Tough," Harris said faintly apologetically. "We've only got one spare room and we'll need that for guests all the freaking time."

"So put him in it," Nikolai insisted.

"And move him in with you every time someone comes visiting?" Harris asked wryly. "This way is less hassle all round, believe me. Unless you want to claim the couch?"

Nikolai commented volubly on Harris' parentage in Russian. The man didn't even blink. "I'll leave you two to settle in and get acquainted," he said, raising his voice so that Fletcher could hear too. "Come down in say ten minutes and I'll give you the 411 on what's really happening. Try not to kill each other in the mean time, OK?"

Harris turned and left without waiting for a reply. Nikolai nearly went after him to carry on arguing. Two things stopped him; his father's orders and the definite impression that it wouldn't help. Father had been very clear: Nikolai was to obey Harris. The _Bogatyr_ he had called him. Not a man to make an enemy of lightly, and his superiors were not people to make enemies of at all.

Nikolai stalked into the room, doing his best to ignore Fletcher sprawled out on one of the beds. "My room," he muttered sulkily.

Fletcher lifted his head. "My bed," he insisted before mashing his face back into the pillow. Nikolai briefly considered holding him there until he smothered, but Harris was not likely to believe that happened by accident.

"Is not fair," he said instead, flinging himself onto the other bed. It was soft and supporting and infinitely better than what he had been sleeping on, but he refused to be comforted by it.

Fletcher rolled onto his side and looked at him. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"What's the matter?" Nikolai exploded. "My father is at war with..." He paused, unable to think of a satisfying enough insult in English. "With dangerous vermin, and I am not with him. I am not helping him win. I am here, sharing room with you and doing nothing. What is not the matter?"

Fletcher regarded him solemnly. "OK, that sucks," he said. Nikolai deflated. Damned English, it wasn't even satisfying trying to argue with them.

Then Fletcher perked up. "Hey, maybe you can't do anything for your dad right now, but you can do stuff here instead. Get in good with Mr Harris's Council and maybe they'll reckon they owe you. It's a win-win situation: save the world and score brownie points for your dad."

Nikolai got the gist of that, he thought, and building up favours in case he needed them sounded like a good plan. "You save the world?" he asked curiously. Surely the boy was exaggerating.

"Well, I haven't," Fletcher admitted, "and Josh claims he and Ste only helped save the country, but he said Mr Harris had." He rolled himself upright in a smooth move that made Nikolai wonder how much acrobatics training Fletcher had had. "We could go ask him now. I want to hear how he tells the story anyway."

It was something to do at least, Nikolai thought. "I will get the others," he said, standing up himself.

"Yeah, I wouldn't," Fletcher said quickly. "They've been sharing a room with Josh's brother. This is pretty much the first privacy they've had since they got together. If I know Josh, they'll be making up for lost time."

Nikolai had to think hard about what Fletcher meant, because the first thing he thought of must be wrong. "They are...?" He couldn't even remember the English word for it. Some little innocuous thing...

"Gay? Well, bisexual at any rate," Fletcher admitted. "And so very much in love with each other it's depressing."

"And this is why they live here?" Nikolai asked. "Father not like?" Frankly he was surprised that Fletcher was treating it so lightly. He and Ashworth were obviously close friends, and for that sort of friend to be homosexual? It was unacceptable. Fletcher must be truly desperate for friends.

"Nah," Fletcher said easily. "I mean, Neville doesn't get it and its kind of hilarious watching him try to figure out how to treat Josh now. He loves his family though, and he's not going to let Josh suddenly turning gay change that. No, they just wanted a room to themselves."

"I see," Nikolai lied. He was obviously going to have to be careful here. If Fletcher showed the slighted sign of thinking about him that way...

"Come on, Nicky," Fletcher said as he headed for the doorway. "If you think that's weird, Mr Harris is going to blow your mind."

"Is Nikolai," Nikolai said absently. He seriously doubted anything Harris could say would be more disturbing than what he had just learned.

"What?"

"My name is Nikolai."

Fletcher appeared to consider this as Nikolai joined him. "Nah," he said, "that's too long. I'm calling you Nicky."

"Is my name, Jamie," Nikolai said pointedly.

Fletcher laughed. "Now that's just low," he said.

It wasn't until they were halfway down the stairs, still bickering, that Nikolai realised how thoroughly Fletcher had distracted and manipulated him. Fletcher had revealed practically nothing of himself while keeping Nikolai too off-balance to notice. These people were good, he decided. He was going to have to be very careful with them.


	10. Small Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaz makes a move. Fletch strings moves together.

Lauren hurried across the village square, trying not to be noticed by anyone on speaking terms with her family. Mostly. She was still walking on air enough not to care much, but she didn't want Calvin or Danny interfering.

Last night had been perfect. Newt had somehow got hold of the keys to _Evissa_ and had spread candles everywhere to surprise her with. They had made love for the first time, and it had been everything Lauren had imagined. Newt had been so gentle and attentive and as amazed as she was, and it had been just incredible. He had spent the entire day at school giving her these little shy smiles, as if he couldn't believe what had happened either.

Then at the end of school Lauren had found the note slipped into her locker. '6PM AT THE FOLLY,' it read. 'DONT BE LATE.' It would just about be dark by 6, and the Folly, the fake dilapidated gatehouse for a castle that was never built, had lots of hidden spaces that were still open to the air. It was daring of Newt to pick it as a make-out spot. Lauren was impressed.

Stepping in among the stone-work, Lauren paused and looked back, making sure no one was following. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she turned back and nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Bang on time," Gaz said. He grinned at her from the archway he was standing in.

"You..." Lauren spluttered angrily. "That was your note?" She should have known; Newt's handwriting was terrible. Miss Heyton said he was dyslexic.

Gaz rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said, "I've got something to show you." He turned to go, but paused when Lauren made no move to follow. "What's the matter, can't handle a real man?"

Lauren sneered. She could handle him. With one hand tied behind her back, even. Gaz talked a good game, but he wasn't any more muscular than Newt. His only advantage was the group of pathetic losers who made up his gang. Alone like this, Lauren was confident she could send him running crying for his mummy.

She followed him through to one of the tucked away corners of the Folly. There were raised stones in the centre, meant to look like the foundations of some massive pillar, and on them were draped a couple of sleeping bags. It was about as uninteresting a scene as Lauren could imagine. "This is what you wanted me to see?" she asked scornfully.

"No," Gaz shot back, "this is what I wanted you to see." He gestured to the open sky, and Lauren looked up.

It was breathtaking. The walls around them were high enough to block out the streetlights, and in the dark skies above them more stars than Lauren could remember seeing were coming out. "Oh," she breathed, sitting down on one of the sleeping bags as she stared. She could feel the poetry moving in her, responding to the sight. There weren't any words, not yet, but there would be.

"Yeah, I know," Gaz said, quietly sitting beside her and laying back on his sleeping bag. "It's just so big."

Vast, that was the word. It was vast and distant, Lauren thought as she too leaned back, and it made everything humanity did seem so insignificant. What mattered conformity in the face of such uncaring vastness? Better to be yourself, to free yourself in the immensity.

Yeah, she could work with that.

She turned so that she was looking at Gaz rather than the heavens. "Why?" she asked bluntly. This was wildly out of character for the pathetic bully she knew.

"Can't I just like you?" he protested.

"No you can't," she shot back. The little Little Englander and the coloured girl, it sounded like the start of a bad joke.

Gaz sighed in agreement. "I do like you," he insisted, "but you know what my dad would think about that. He'd kill me. He'd get away with it too, he knows the Chief Constable."

Lauren wasn't impressed by hyperbole. "That doesn't mean you have to be such a pain at school," she pointed out.

"Someone saw last time I just talked to you," Gaz said bitterly, "so yeah, I have to be seen to be 'putting you in your place.' This is getting too fucking serious," he grumbled, and rummaged in his bag.

"You are kidding me," Lauren said when he produced a thermos. "You brought cocoa?"

"Vodka," Gaz told her with a twisted little smile. "Got to keep it cold somehow."

That was more like it, Lauren thought. The frozen burn of the alcohol helped her relax. Helped her to forget who it was lying next to her, holding her hand as they gazed at the stars and poetry slowly unwound itself in her head. It was almost nice.

She even let him kiss her cheek when they parted.

* * *

Fletch was bored. This was getting to be a depressingly normal state of affairs in the evening.

Nicky was 'entertaining' Sasha, so Fletch couldn't crash in his room. Josh and Ste had control of the TV, so there would be either something really boring to watch or more making out than Fletch was comfortable being near. Or both, most likely. Mr Wells was doing something in the kitchen, and no good came of disturbing him. (When Mr Harris had mentioned that his other half also cooked, Fletch had smiled. He'd seen _Under Siege_ plenty of times. Reality had been disappointing.)

That left the library (ugh) or the training room (less ugh, but still...). With Polly and Mr Harris out on patrol tonight, there wasn't even the prospect of getting his arse kicked by a pretty girl to make things more interesting. Fletch actually considered the library for a while — he was sure that was where the magic coin was hidden, and he wanted another look at the thing — before resigning himself to pretending to exercise for a bit.

Fletch knew he wasn't the sporty type. Much as he was jealous of the footie team, being that fit was way more effort than he wanted to put in. He hadn't needed Mr Harris' flat-out refusal to take him patrolling to tell him that he didn't fit into the whole Slaying business. He couldn't fight, couldn't do magic, and just the idea of poking around in old books made him sneeze. Apart from cheering the girls on, there was basically nothing he could do. Even Nicky could throw a punch without terminally embarrassing himself, not that he was allowed out patrolling either.

Still, every group needed its comic relief, didn't it?

It took less than a minute for Fletch to get bored poking at the big sandbag. Actually punching it left him with bruised knuckles. Mr Harris promised his hands would toughen up eventually but right now Fletch was not in favour of the pain. Looking around the training room, he noticed that someone had left the wooden practice swords with the fancy Japanese name out. Now there was something to play with.

Thirty seconds later, Fletch had discovered that the big bag swung back when you hit it hard, and smacking yourself across the shins with your own bokken hurt. He swore vigorously. He was allowed to do that here, only Mr Wells got the Pinched Face of Doom and even he didn't say anything. After the hypocrisy his father had shown...

So, wooden sword. There must be something fun he could with it without bruising himself some more. A quick attempt to swashbuckle across the room nearly sprained his wrist, so that was out. What else... Oh, Fletch thought. Training montage. Yeah, he could do that. Slowly he brought the sword up vertically in front of himself, settled for a moment and then started moving slowly.

It was surprisingly difficult. Over the next few minutes Fletch developed a whole new respect for actors, because getting that sword to go where he wanted and stop when he wanted was _hard._ Still, he managed to fall into a rhythm eventually, not trying so hard and just guiding the sword rather than trying to push it. It was calming really, just him and the sword moving together.

He felt more than heard someone behind him and pivoted, sword coming up into a position from which he could launch a parry or a strike with equal ease. Then he recognised Polly, tripped over his own feet and fell flat on the floor.

"Not bad," said Mr Harris from where he was putting the real weapons away. "Your dismount could use a little work though."

Fletch brightened. "Really?" he asked. If Harris thought he wasn't bad, did that mean...?

"Still not coming patrolling," Harris threw back, dashing his hopes.

"He's better than you are," Polly objected, effortlessly helping Fletch back upright. He grinned at her.

"Low bar," Harris said. "I'm more of an axeman, and I never said I was good. How none of us died when we went out with Buffy I will never know."

"How did you learn all that?" Polly asked.

Fletch shuffled his feet. "I was just trying stuff out," he admitted. "You know, like in the movies."

That got Harris' attention for some reason. "You ever picked up a sword before?" he asked.

"No," Fletch said. Playing pirates with Josh when they were eight probably didn't count. "Look, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have been playing with your practice stuff."

Harris waved the apology away. "It's kinda late tonight," he said, "but you want to join us after school tomorrow? Do some real practice with the girls?"

Fletch realised his mouth was open and shut it with a snap. Harris actually thought he might be some good? He wasn't just humouring him like everyone always did? "Really?" he asked. "Does that mean...?"

"Still not coming patrolling."


	11. Getting A Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt tries putting his plan in action. Nikolai finds some educational reading. Neither are entirely successful.

"You gonna come with me this time?"

Newt looked up in time to see Gaz brush past him. Yeah, he thought, abruptly turning to follow. It had been days since Gaz had tried to freak him out. Newt was looking forward to returning the favour.

Gaz steered them into one of the more built-up parts of the village, full of twisty alleys and hidden corners. It wasn't exactly romantic territory, Newt thought to himself. In fact it was better suited to lying in wait to beat the shit out of someone. He started paying more attention to his surroundings and where they were going, just in case Gaz was trying to set him up like that. He didn't really believe it though; neither Gaz nor his mates had the patience for something like that. If they wanted to kick the crap out of him they'd have done it on the way home from school.

Then again, the whole idea of Gaz doing this to mess with his head didn't make a whole lot of sense either. It was just too abstract, too much like hard work to be true. People like Gaz wanted immediate gratification, and that didn't fit what was going on at all. Newt could almost believe that Gaz was serious about this if he wasn't coming over so confident. If it was for real, Gaz would be a hell of a lot more nervous about his dad finding out, and for good reason as far as Newt could tell.

"This'll do," Gaz said quietly, interrupting Newt's whirling thoughts. He turned sharply into a shadowed alley.

Newt baulked. "Not a chance," he said. "I bet you've got half your gang down there just waiting to beat me up."

Gaz snorted. "You want to pick a different alley, Chicken Little, be my guest. You know why we can't be seen together."

Yeah, Newt thought, Gaz's dad would kill them. It was wearing thin as an excuse, even if it was probably true. It also didn't mean he had to be stupid. He walked down the street and turned into a different alley. Let Gaz trail after him for once, and forget any nasty surprises he might have set up.

It took a couple of minutes for Gaz to slip in the other end of the alley. Long enough for Newt to nerve himself to kiss a boy, tell himself that it didn't mean anything, and have a mild freak out that maybe it did. He just about had himself back under control by the time Gaz walked up to where he was lurking.

"Probably a good thing, splitting up like that," Gaz murmured. "Now where were we?"

"You talk too much," Newt said, trying for suave and probably missing by a mile. He leaned forward and gently kissed Gaz on the lips.

Gaz had his eyes closed when Newt pulled back. He opened them slowly and smirked. "Huh," he grunted.

Newt narrowed his eyes. He didn't take judgemental crap from his friends, he certainly wasn't taking it from Gaz. "What?" he demanded. "Not good enough for you?"

"If you kiss Lauren like that, no wonder she's interested in something more... exciting," Gaz taunted.

"I'll show you exciting," Newt practically snarled, and lunged forwards.

It wasn't like kissing Lauren, but then he never expected it to be. Kissing Lauren was an act of devotion, telling her without words how much he loved her and giving control over to her. He trusted her with every fibre of his being, and his kisses said so. Kissing Gaz was an act of war, a battle for dominance. Neither of them were willing to give an inch, and it was exhilarating. Newt was grinning when they broke apart, and Gaz had that same grin when he dived back in.

Newt pushed Gaz up against the wall, kissing his way round to Gaz's neck. Gaz seemed to be in favour of that, tilting his head for better access and pulling Newt in closer. Newt grinned again as their bodies slotted together. He could feel the bulge in Gaz's jeans that said the skinhead was not as straight as he pretended, the hypocrite. Whereas Newt was...

Shit.

Newt pushed away. "No," he panted. No way. He had not got hard just from kissing Gaz. He had not.

Fortunately Gaz seemed to be more out of it than Newt. It took him several seconds to get it together enough to ask "What?", time Newt needed to remind himself that he was supposed to be freaking Gaz out, not the other way round. Not that Gaz seemed to be freaking out at all. Brilliant idea that, Eli.

"No, I am not having back-alley sex with you," Next said as firmly as he could, trying to regain some sort of control of the situation.

He might as well not have bothered. Gaz just grinned smugly and said, "But you are having sex with me."

"In your dreams," Newt retorted. Gaz's grin got wider.

"Next time," he said, "I'm going to taste you." He rubbed at his reddened neck.

Newt started backing towards the alley mouth. "What makes you think there'll be a next time?" he asked. He certainly didn't want a next time. Just the idea of Gaz pawing at him, kissing him like _that_ and...

Shit.

Gaz didn't bother answering, the bastard.

Newt fled.

* * *

Nikolai was not hiding in the library. It was purest coincidence that the disconcerting young men he was forced to share a house with seemed to be allergic to books, with the occasional exception of Ashworth who at least didn't talk when he came to look something up. No, Nikolai was not hiding, he was gathering intelligence.

He like to think of himself as a worldly, physical person. He knew he looked imposing, and he had pestered his father's bodyguards into training him almost from the point he understood what it was they did. He could make friends when he wanted to, his father had talked often enough about how even he sometimes needed allies, not that Nikolai would ever admit that to anyone else. The normal life of the rich and powerful was something he understood, with all its threats and benefits.

The life of people who actually had to count how much money they had, that was not so familiar. Nikolai did not know what to make of these people who had so little of what he counted as strength but who were not only openly and unconcernedly homosexual but who fought the supernatural every night. Successfully. He did not understand them or the things they fought, but at least for the latter he had their library. His father would expect him to evaluate the threats and benefits of this supernatural world, or at least to understand why it constantly broke his expectations.

Nikolai would be the first to acknowledge that he wasn't a great reader, not even of good Russian adventure stories. It wasn't a particularly manly thing to do, and besides the movies were better. Still, he didn't have much option if he wanted to find out about demons and magic; the knowledge was in the books and Nikolai didn't have anyone to read them for him. They weren't easy to read either. Many of the books were handwritten, none were in Russian and few enough were in what he would charitably describe as English. Between the strange words and the bad spelling he was finding it slow going.

To be fair, he only spent his evenings in the library, and not all of them. The young people were at school during the day, an indignity Nikolai had flatly refused to undergo, so he could use the gymnasium without fear of being humiliated by a girl. There was still the risk of being humiliated by Harris, but at least he seemed as embarrassed as Nikolai by how easily and unconventionally he could knock Nikolai down. And of course many of his evenings were spent with the beautiful Sasha, who did not appear to know about magic for all her ferocious wit. If only any of his women friends back home were as sharp as she was. It probably helped for once that he wasn't famous to her.

Sighing at the injustice of it all, Nikolai reached for a new book. _The Traveller's..._ no wait, 'journeyman' meant something else, didn't it? The last word of the title wasn't even in his dictionary. Typical. Nikolai flipped though the pages anyway. Anything was better than giving up and going to his room. Jamie might be trying to impress Polly again, and that was just painful to watch. If he wasn't so annoying, Nikolai would have given him a few tips out of pity.

The book was full of pictures of plants and cramped writing presumably describing them. The artist was good, very much the sort of thing Nikolai's father would pull out if he wanted to impress someone intellectual. The text... if Nikolai wanted to know about plants he would ask the internet. Admittedly it wouldn't tell him that "the roote, crushed with a littel oil of peppermint and applied to the nek, is sovreyn against hedakes," whatever that meant. He was about to put the book aside as pretty but useless when a heading caught his eye: "An Spell for thee Saf Transport of Seedlings."

A spell? Interesting. Nikolai grabbed his notepad and started carefully translating the infuriating writing. It took a while and a lot of guessing, but eventually he got it down in good, comprehensible Russian. Hearteningly it claimed to be simple and not need "the surpassing konning of the goldeneye," which was just as well since he had no clue what that was talking about. All he had to do was calm himself, imagine the tray of seedlings (or in this case, his pen) floating into the air, make a peculiar gesture and repeat some words he couldn't translate. Easy.

He did briefly worry whether he should be trying something like this without help. Only briefly though; he was Nikolai Gregorovich, caution was for lesser men. He put his pen down on the table, went through the routine and carefully pronounced the untranslatable words.

The pen twitched.

Nikolai blinked and grinned. That had been more than he had expected, to be honest. He wouldn't really have been surprised if it never worked for him, despite the book's promise that "any with wit and craft" could do it. That was a lot like what his father's computer people said, and they might as well be talking in another language.

Still, coming so close on his first try was definitely something to be proud of. Clearly he needed to be more stern, like his father was when he wanted to be very sure his orders were understood. He leaned closer and repeated the spell, speaking more firmly this time. Some trick of the acoustics made the sibilant words echo around the library.

The pen leapt up off the table, smacked him on the forehead and carried on going. Nikolai let rip some choice expletives, then laughed for joy when he saw his pen resting against the ceiling. "I am genius," he told the room smugly. Whoever had written the book was clearly an idiot; plants would have been smashed flat, not lifted gently. He would need to experiment to get just the right amount of lift. Chuckling, he reached for his pen to jot down some ideas...

His pen was stuck on the ceiling.

Damn. Nikolai tried the spell again, visualising the pen coming gently back down to the table this time. It didn't even twitch. Feeling a bit less elated, Nikolai turned back to the book to see if it said anything about putting seedlings down safely.

An hour later, his pen fell off the ceiling and hit him on the head. Clearly being a genius was not all it was cracked up to be.


	12. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt talks to Justin. Fletch talks to Nikolai. Gaz talks to Kieron. And something may be rotten in the County Palatine of Chester.

"So I kissed a boy last night."

Justin hid a sigh as he closed his book and looked up at Newt. The kid was normally as communicative as a tree stump, he must be feeling desperate to actually talk to someone. It was just Justin's luck that he was the someone available. "I'm guessing it wasn't like you expected?" he asked mildly.

Newt sat down in one of the armchairs. "It was..." He broke off, shaking his head in annoyance. "I don't even like the guy."

Justin considered that. "I can't tell you that's a bad reason for kissing someone," he admitted. "Jake and I were at each other's throats until we got together."

That surprised Newt more that Justin expected. He'd been sure that Frankie would have warned Newt about him before now. Maybe he was winning her over.

"But it's Gaz," Newt protested eventually. "He's just..." The accompanying gesture could have meant anything from "he's short" to "my hands are wet." Justin could vaguely recall hearing Newt mention someone called Gaz before, but he couldn't remember anything about him.

"Did you enjoy it?" he asked.

"No!" Newt's shoulders slumped. "Yes. Maybe." He stared disconsolately at his hands.

"It was a kiss," Justin said, smiling gently. "We tend to enjoy them." He stiffened, suddenly remembering just what Newt had said about this Gaz kid. "Unless he was trying to force you," he said carefully.

"Huh? No, nothing like that," Newt said. He seemed genuinely surprised, which reassured Justin no end. "He was just... It was..."

Justin remembered how he had felt not so very long ago and took a wild guess. "Different?" he suggested. Newt nodded unhappily. "Everyone's different," Justin told him. "Katie didn't kiss me like Becca did. Jake isn't like either of them. It doesn't mean anything more than we aren't the same as each other." He paused, then grinned. "Just like you keep saying."

"Piss off," Newt said, but there was no heat in it. He was distracted as all hell thinking about something. Justin let him have time to think.

"How did you know?" Newt asked suddenly. "About Jake, I mean. How did you know he was the one for you?"

Justin blinked in surprise. He'd been expecting Newt to ask him how he knew he was gay at some point, but Newt had skipped straight over that. He deserved as honest an answer as Justin could give him.

"When I couldn't bear the thought of him being in danger," he said with feeling.

"Wow," Newt said, raising a sarcastic eyebrow. "That's not melodramatic or anything."

"Some serious stuff went down over Christmas," Justin told him. "We nearly lost Jake," and if Malachy Fisher ever came back to Hollyoaks, he was a dead man. Justin had heard enough to know Malachy had been the one to introduce Jake to the _Pole Star,_ and the way he'd left town a couple of days later was dead suspicious. Jake wouldn't say anything and Xander got extra evasive whenever Justin brought it up, which pretty much confirmed it as far as he was concerned.

"Why did you care?" Newt challenged.

"Because I was there," Justin said emphatically. "It hurt to see Jake that badly broken. Then a friend needed help that would have reopened all those wounds, and I couldn't let him face that on his own. I wouldn't have let him face it at all but he insisted." He couldn't help but chuckle as he added, "He was right too."

"Wow," Newt said quietly. "So not what I was expecting. That must have been intense."

Justin nodded. "There are parts of it I wish hadn't happened, big parts, but if they hadn't... I'm one of eight people I know who have cast-iron unarguable proof that they are with the one meant for them. I don't expected to meet number nine." He looked wryly over at Newt. "So yeah, I may not be typical."

"No shit," Newt told him. He looked a bit awed, which at least made a change from treating Justin like an occasionally mobile piece of furniture. "I guess I'm going to have to figure it out for myself."

"We all do, straight, gay or bi," Justin said consolingly. "Don't you have friends you could talk this over with?" People who might know Newt better than Justin did.

"Sure," Newt said scornfully, "if I wanted it all over school five minutes later. Even Eli would just laugh at me."

"Eli?" Justin asked. It wasn't a name he had heard Newt mention before.

Newt immediately looked shifty. "An old friend," he said. "From before I came here."

Justin nodded again. Much as he wanted to tell Newt that someone who had been a friend for that long would understand, he knew it wasn't true. The number of people that had turned on John Paul...

"Just remember," he said, "just because you like kissing someone doesn't mean you have to fall in love with them." It occurred to him in time not to mention kissing your mother; probably not tactful to a foster kid. "Sleep on it. Maybe you'll have some answers in the morning."

It was Newt's turn to nod, pretty unenthusiastically. He stood up, then paused. "Could you not tell anyone else?" he asked.

"'Course not," Justin said. Maybe he sounded too flip, because Newt frowned at him.

"I'm serious. Gaz's dad..." Newt hesitated, apparently not so sure of himself anymore. "Gaz expects he'd get beaten up just for talking civilly to me or Lauren. If it got out he'd kissed either of us..."

Justin grimaced. The guy sounded like a bigot and a bully, neither of which Justin had any sympathy for. "I won't say anything about anyone kissing anyone," he promised. "You be careful too. It doesn't sound like this guy would hesitate before beating you up. If you ever need help, call me."

"Because you're so macho," Newt sneered, back to his usual self.

"Because I know people who wouldn't find him scary," Justin fired back. And if two of them were girls only a couple of years older than Newt, the kid didn't need to know that. "Seriously, you've got backup whenever you need it."

"Oookay." The way Newt stretched the word out made Justin fairly certain Newt didn't believe him. Oh well, he'd tried. "Thanks for the advice, I guess."

"You're welcome," Justin replied. He waited until Newt had left the room before picking his book back up. Five minutes, he thought. He'd give Newt a good five minutes to get settled in his room before doing anything else.

After all, he hadn't promised not to tell Frankie her foster kid was having an identity crisis.

* * *

Nicky was already in their shared room when Fletch stumbled in and threw himself on his bed. Well, fuck him and his I'm better than you attitude, Fletch wasn't about to go find somewhere else to be. He was in no mood to be nice to the poor little rich boy.

He had been stewing in his own unpleasant thoughts for several minutes before Nicky sighed and put down his notepad. "What is matter?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Fletch said shortly. He didn't want to talk about this.

"Huh," Nicky said disbelievingly. "You do not talk at me. You always talk. Is not nothing."

"I though you'd be happy I was quiet for once," Fletch told him snidely.

"You sigh and move like ants in bed," Nicky shot back. "Is just as bad. My father says—"

"Can you just shut up about your father?" Fletch snapped. He was not going to cry. Nicky would laugh and call him weak, and then Fletch would have to kill him.

Nicky sat up straighter. "Angry makes us stupid," he said firmly. "You are not stupid. Tell me what is matter and I help make smart answer."

"Yeah, sure." Nicky especially would just laugh at him.

"What has your father done?" Nicky asked.

Fletch shot upright. "What...? How did you know?"

"You are angry when I talk about my father," Nicky said. "I guess. Also am genius," he added modestly.

"You are a pain in the arse," Fletch told him. "Dad... You know he threw me out because he wasn't my biological father?" Nicky raised his eyebrows but gestured for Fletch to continue. Like hell had he known. "I went shopping with Polly today and we saw him in the street. Nearly ran into him. He acted like I wasn't even there."

Nicky sniffed. "Stupid," he said. "He makes you enemy then gives you perfect chance to kill him? Very stupid."

Fletch stared at him. "You have a very warped view of the world," he said eventually.

"Is true," Nicky protested. "And you are not so angry I think."

He wasn't, Fletch realised. His sneaky, underhanded friend had managed to drag him out of his funk. "How do you do that?" he asked.

Nicky shrugged and picked his notepad back up. "Is easy when you do not give a shit," he said.

"Way to make me feel appreciated, Nicky," Fletch said. He grinned all the same; he wasn't buying all the 'my father could kill you with his little finger' bullshit. If Nicky really thought Fletch was beneath him, he wouldn't talk at all. Just like his father hadn't. That thought wiped the smile off his face.

Nicky glared at him and growled something in Russian. Fletch looked at him enquiringly. "Is old Russian proverb," Nicky elaborated. "Means, anyone who is nice to you wants something."

"So what do you want?" Fletch asked. Nicky had been nice, at least for him.

"Quiet night," Nicky said promptly.

Fletch laughed. "Yeah, like that's happening," he said. Though since Nicky had actually improved his mood, he really ought to give the guy a break and not bother him for a bit.

That resolution lasted as long as it took Nicky to glare at him and mutter something else unintelligible. "Hey, you should teach me Russian," Fletch said pretty much as the thought occurred to him. "It would be cool to be able to talk to you without everyone else understanding."

Nicky looked unimpressed. "Not cool for me," he said.

"It'll be like you're back home," Fletch steamrollered on, caught up in his own enthusiasm. "No one will know when we're planning to follow them on patrol."

"They know even less if I say nothing," Nicky pointed out.

"Yeah, and how well is that working?" Fletch asked. He'd been stopped every time before he had even left the house. "It's like Harris has got the best Mom-sense ever. Come on, Nicky, it'll be fun."

Nicky gave him an incredulous look. It morphed into something more considering when Fletch pulled out the puppy eyes. "If I teach you Russian, _Jamie,_ " he said, putting entirely unnecessary emphasis on Fletch's name, "what will you do for me?"

Fletch thought about that for a moment. Nicky was clearly angling to get Fletch to call him by his full name, which yeah, not happening. Someone needed to stop the guy from taking himself so seriously, and Fletch was happy to provide a quality teasing service. So what could he...? Oh, yeah.

"I could teach you swords," he said happily.

Nicky looked surprised. "I know how to shoot a gun," he pointed out. "Why do I need sword?"

"You haven't got a gun here," Fletch told him, "and it's really hard to get a permit in this country. Besides, Wells said they just piss off most demons." There was something going on there; both Harris and Wells were way less enthusiastic about guns than he had expected from Americans.

"Sword is not legal either," Nicky observed.

"Yeah, but it works more often. Hey, we can have movie fights and everything. It'll be brilliant." Fletch beamed at Nicky, trying to infect him with enthusiasm.

Just as he had hoped, big tough Nikolai Kraslov crumbled in the face of Hurricane Fletcher. The guy was a pushover once you knew how to press his buttons. "Hokey," Nicky sighed. "Here is first lesson in Russian," He rattled off something that sounded like it contained Fletch's name. "Means, 'Shut up, Jamie.'"

«Shut up, Nikolai,» Fletch tried. Nicky threw a pillow at him.

Fletch, it turned out, was not particularly great with Russian. He made Nicky laugh way more than he was comfortable with. It was almost enough to make him give up on their deal.

Almost, but not quite. Because Nicky with a sword? Comedy gold.

* * *

"Uh, 'scuse me?"

Kieron looked up from where he was tidying up prayer books to see Gaz Bennet standing in the church, looking about as out of place as possible. "Gaz," he said with a welcoming smile. "How are you?"

"I'm... Can I talk to you?"

Never mind out of place, Gaz looked positively lost. "Of course," Kieron said, trying not to sound as concerned as he felt. "Come on, have a seat." He lead Gaz down to the front row of pews, careful to leave space between them. They would be clearly visible if anyone wandered in, and he didn't want any hint of impropriety. Really he ought to be doing this somewhere much more publicly visible, but he didn't think Gaz would be happy with that.

"How can I help?" he asked once they were settled.

Gaz didn't seem to know where to start. Kieron let him take his time. There was no sense in hurrying a troubled teenager, he had long since learned.

"I'm not gay," Gaz blurted out.

Oh Lord, Kieron prayed quickly, how you love to test me. One look at Gaz's donkey jacket, jeans and shaven head would have told anyone how badly it would go for him if he was gay. "OK," he said as neutrally as he could.

"I'm not!"

"I believe you," Kieron said, holding his hands up in surrender. He still didn't push, even though he could hear the 'but' coming.

Gaz sighed gustily. "I've been having these weird dreams," he admitted. Kieron nodded encouragingly. "About someone I know at school."

"Do you get on with him?" Kieron asked when Gaz didn't seem inclined to say any more.

"Hell, no," Gaz exploded. "He's so wet it's a wonder he doesn't leave puddles behind. He doesn't deserve her."

"Her?"

Gaz hesitated. "His girlfriend. She's..." His face softened as he apparently searched for words to describe this girl. He was obviously smitten with her, Kieron thought, which made the gay dream crisis all the more confusing. Then Gaz's shoulders slumped. "Black," he finished.

"Ouch," Kieron say sympathetically. That was another thing that could only go badly for Gaz. "You don't do things by halves, do you?"

Gaz glared at him. "This was a mistake," he said, starting to rise.

"That's wasn't a criticism," Kieron said quickly. "Some of the greatest saints didn't do things by halves either. It just doesn't make life easy for you."

"Tell me about it," Gaz said, slumping back down on the pew.

Kieron looked closely at him and decided to risk some advice. "You know it's never wrong to love someone," he said. "No matter what their colour."

"I love Lauren," Gaz whispered. He cleared his throat and said it more loudly; "I love Lauren."

Kieron grinned at the look of wonder on his face. "See," he said, "you said it and the world didn't end."

Gaz's smile lasted for all of a second. "I love her," he said quietly, "but I dream of him."

It was a conundrum, and Kieron didn't have nearly enough information to offer good advice. "Tell me about them?" he asked.

Gaz couldn't stop smiling as he described Lauren, who apparently hung the moon and the stars. "She's strong," he said reverently. "I know we can't be seen together, but I feel so easy with her. It's like she's not scared of anything, and when we're together I don't have to be scared either. I don't know what she sees in Newt."

"What do you see in him?"

"Nothing!" Yeah, Kieron thought, that came out much too quickly. "He's mouthy and annoying and all he does is agree with Lauren. He thinks he's so original with all the eyeliner and emo shit — uh, sorry Father."

"No, no," Kieron said, smiling lightly. "Tell me how you really feel."

To his surprise, Gaz crumpled again. "In my dreams he gives as good as he gets," he admitted. "I'm the one seducing him, and he will not back down."

"It sounds like you like him after all," Kieron said quietly.

Gaz laughed hollowly. "I kissed him. In my dreams, I mean. I've kissed Lauren for real and it was amazing, but I dreamed I kissed Newt and it was..."

He didn't seem to have words. Kieron could fill in a few from his own time as a confused teenager. "It was a dream," he said gently. It could have meant anything.

"It felt real," Gaz argued. "I must have wanted it to be real mustn't I?"

"Not necessarily," Kieron said. He was ready to distract Gaz with how thing and people in dreams could have very odd meanings, but Gaz didn't give him the chance.

"How can I do that?" he asked. "I love Lauren, I really do. How can I even imagine liking Newt?"

Ah. "Don't tell the bishop," Kieron said, not entirely joking, "but sexuality isn't an either/or thing. Straight men can find some men attractive, and gay men can find some women attractive. And some like both equally well. Now I'm not saying that's the case for you," he continued, raising a hand to forestall the objection Gaz obviously wanted to make. "Dreams are strange, and for all we know it could just mean that you felt bad about trying to romance Lauren away from Newt. It's just something else to consider, that's all."

Gaz sat quietly for a while, then gave a bitter laugh. "I guess they were right about me," he said. "I'm stuck in my little box, and then something like this happens and I don't know what to do."

"Nobody ever does," Kieron told him. "We're all stuck in our boxes, even Lauren and Newt, and when God nudges us, none of us know what to do. Sometimes we make terrible decisions like Jonah did." Or make good decisions for terrible reasons, like becoming a priest so his grandparents would never find out he was gay. They had found out anyway, but Kieron had seen and done and prayed enough to be sure of his calling now.

"Don't sell yourself short, either," he continued. "You love Lauren, you aren't telling yourself otherwise and you're doing what you can about it. That's enormous. It's amazingly brave, really."

"It doesn't feel like it," Gaz said bleakly. All of his defences seemed to be down and Kieron couldn't help but feel for the confused, possibly bisexual kid. "I'm too scared to be brave."

"Being brave isn't about not being scared," Kieron told him. "Being brave is about being scared, but then doing what you have to anyway."

Gaz was silent for a long while after that. Kieron used the time to pray silently for him, asking God to protect this young man and help him find his way. For Gaz even more than had been true for Kieron, violence was a very real, potentially lethal possibility.

Finally, Gaz stood. "I should go," he said. "I don't want..."

Kieron nodded as he too stood. While he didn't know exactly what Gaz couldn't find the words for, he understood the confusion all too well. His first instinct was to hug the kid, but he didn't think that would go down well so he shoved his hands in his pockets. As he did so, his fingers brushed a piece of card. He almost laughed; he didn't know when he had pocketed one of the 'business cards' the diocese printed up for him, but he knew an answer to prayer when one slapped him in the face.

"Here," he said, thrusting the card at Gaz. "You can call me any time, whether you need help or just to talk."

Gaz stared at the card for a moment like it was made out of gold. "Uh, thanks," he said, and pocketed it. He had to visibly pull on the arrogance that Kieron had first seen at the school assembly, and Kieron counted that a win too.

"God be with you," Kieron murmured as Gaz turned and left, "every step of your way." He was going to need to do a lot of praying for help and strength himself, he could tell. The devil seldom gave up easily, and the spiritual fight was barely started. He wouldn't begrudge the effort, thought.

It was, after all, his job.


	13. Countdown: 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fletch is caught napping. Kieron is caught between a rock and a hard place. Newt is caught not taking his meds.
> 
> The night is yet young.

_— A Nabraxis Seal! Where is it?_

_— I don't know._

_— Hm. Where do you think it is?_

_— In the library._

_— Damn it. If there's one place that the Watchers will have warded up to the eyeballs, it's their precious library. How is it protected?_

_— I don't know._

_— What markings are on the door and door frame to the library?_

_— The word 'library' carved in letters approximately two inches high by a fifth of an inch deep on a wooden plaque screwed to the door._

_— Is that all?_

_— There is a scuff mark two inches from the floor on the left-hand side of the door frame. There are dents in the top of the door frame approximately three inches, one foot and three feet from the left-hand edge made by bookshelves. The hinges are mounted..._

_— Stop. Why do I have to work with idiots?_

_— I don't know._

_— Shut up. There must be some way around the protections. How...? Oh, yes, obvious. Do you have to perform any specific actions to enter the library safely?_

_— ..._

_— You can talk now._

_— No._

_— I swear... You do not have to perform any specific actions to enter the library safely, is that correct?_

_— Yes._

_— Good. Now listen carefully and remember these instructions. When you are next alone in the library, find the Nabraxis Seal and hide it on your person. Bring it to me and hand it over once we are in private. If anyone other than me challenges you, you will not remember having done anything with the seal. You will not consciously remember these instructions, but when the time comes you will act on them. Got that?_

_— Yes._

_— In thirty seconds you will wake up, dismiss this whole conversation as a dream and forget about it._

"—tcher?"

"Huh? Sorry, sir?" Fletch started awake. Dozing off in school was a bad plan even without the weird dreams.

"I said is detention not exciting enough for you, Fletcher?" Mr Townsend asked with completely unnecessary sarcasm. "Or do you want to come back tomorrow and see if you can stay awake then?"

"No sir," Fletch said quickly. "I mean, this is plenty exciting enough." At least in comparison to more sitting around getting bored to tears.

One of the other kids in detention with him snickered. Fletch resolutely didn't look to see who it was. Mr Townsend did.

"Something funny, O'Connor?" he asked.

The first year gulped. "No sir," he said quickly. "I... have a cold."

Mr Townsend looked like he believed that about as much as Fletch did, but at least the teacher's attention wasn't on him any more. Fletch put his head down and tried to look industrious. The essay he'd been given was pointless, but Mr Townsend would be really pissed off if he hadn't got it done by the end of detention. Fletch was very glad he didn't do history any more, so he never actually had Mr Townsend for class.

One thing was for sure, Fletch wouldn't be late for class again if Mr Townsend was taking detention.

* * *

Kieron couldn't help but smile as he shut the garden gate behind him. Myra McQueen had insisted on feeding him before he did his evening's errands, even if it was only sausage and chips. Sometimes she could be a bit much, but her heart was in the right place. More or less.

"Well, well, if it isn't Father Hobbs."

Something in Des Townsend's approach dampened Kieron's mood immediately. He hadn't seen the man standing there in the street, and by the looks of it he hadn't been meant to. "Mr Townsend," he said politely, "I wasn't expecting to see you here. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Townsend said, and that was not a nice smile. "I was a bit surprised to see young Gaz Bennet coming out of your church the other day."

"He's as welcome to visit as anyone else," Kieron said carefully. He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't think he was going to like it. Silently he prayed from the strength to handle what was coming.

"I'm sure he is," Townsend said smoothly. "Welcome that is. I just think his father might have things to say about him spending time with a gay man."

Kieron was pretty sure he did a bad job of keeping the shock off his face. This was exactly what he had feared from the moment he'd been assigned his own parish. Despite all the worrying he had done about it, now he was being confronted he had no idea what to do.

Not that Townsend gave him time to do anything much. "Yes, I believe in doing my homework," he said with that same vicious smile. "I looked you up after I met you. It's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days, like old high school blogs that just happen to mention who had been seen kissing who. Very interesting, I thought, what with you taking an interest in Gaz."

"I'm a priest," Kieron said, finding his voice. "I'm celibate, my sexuality is irrelevant."

"I'm sure that was a great comfort to all the little boys and girls in Church care," Townsend said evenly. "Their priests were celibate too, they couldn't possibly be abused."

"I have not and I will not abuse Gaz or anyone else," Kieron promised.

"That's nice," Townsend said dismissively. He didn't care, Kieron realised. It didn't matter to Townsend whether or not Gaz had been abused, just that he could make the accusation.

"You're not going to talk to him again," Townsend continued, "not unless you want to find out just how irrelevant your parishioners think your sexuality is. And if Geoff Bennet finds out, well, he's got quite the temper on him. Who knows who he'd take it out on?"

Kieron stiffened. He'd been expecting veiled threats to himself, but that had been a threat to Gaz. Did Townsend really hate the Church so much that he would deliberately put one of his own pupils at risk? "Hate doesn't solve anything," he said quietly.

Townsend laughed softly. "Oh Father," he said, "you have no idea. Just remember what I said." He smiled once more, turned and left.

Kieron sagged back against the McQueen's garden gate. What do I do, Lord, he prayed. Do I fight this battle and risk losing both the parish and the boy? Is this already lost? Can I ever be the priest any parish would need?

"Are you OK?" a voice asked.

Kieron practically jumped out of his skin. He turned to see John Paul McQueen standing there looking sombre. "Oh," he said intelligently, "I didn't see you there."

"Neither did he," John Paul said, nodding in the direction Townsend had gone. Kieron felt the panic rising again; someone else knew, it was all falling apart.

"How much did you hear?" he asked faintly.

"Enough."

Oh dear Lord no, Kieron thought. Not another one please. Something of that must have shown on his face, because John Paul put his hands up in surrender.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he said, "but would it really be so bad if people knew you were gay? Think of the example you would be setting, showing everyone that the Catholic Church doesn't automatically reject gays."

"But how many of my parishioners would?" Kieron shot back. "How much of my job would I actually be able to do? My sexuality shouldn't matter, but Townsend was right, it will."

John Paul looked like he would contest that, but after a moment he scowled and dropped it. "Is there anything you need to do urgently?" he asked. "Because if there isn't, we should sit you down and get a cup of tea in you before we figure out what to do about this. Maybe something stronger than tea," he added, looking concernedly at Kieron.

Kieron looked back at the McQueens' home and shuddered. "I don't want... I can't..." This wasn't something he ever wanted Myra to find out about.

John Paul looked at the house and nodded. "None of my sisters can keep a secret to save their lives," he said. Somehow it sounded like an agreement. "I'm staying with Matthew, we could go there?"

Kieron nodded, still numb, and didn't resist as John Paul towed him away. "Thank you," he said quietly. "You don't have to help."

"Yes I do," John Paul told him as if abruptly changing his plans for the evening was nothing. "I've been bullied enough that I'm not going to stand aside when I see it happening to someone else."

His smile was genuine and beautiful, and Kieron had to forcibly remind himself that he was celibate and John Paul was engaged. "Thank you anyway," he said.

"No problem," John Paul said. "So why do you think Townsend wants you away from this kid, Gaz?"

"I don't know," Kieron admitted. He tried to kick his brain into gear. "Gaz is in a complicated place right now, perhaps he's trying to protect him?"

He didn't really believe that, and from the snort neither did John Paul. "That wasn't protection. He was enjoying threatening you way too much."

"I don't think he like the Church or religion much," Kieron mused. "Maybe... Maybe he was abused?"

"That doesn't excuse what he did," John Paul said promptly.

"I know," Kieron said, "but maybe we shouldn't judge him too harshly."

"Very Christian of you," John Paul said, "but forgiving him doesn't help you or Gaz. I'm pretty sure I trust him with an impressionable kid much less than I trust you."

And that, Kieron thought, neatly encapsulated why he had to stand up to Townsend. The Good Shepherd went looking for his lost sheep, Jesus said. Kieron could do no less. Giving up on Gaz simply wasn't an option. And perhaps it would help Townsend to see a priest behaving properly.

Thank you, Lord, he thought, for a prompt answer to prayer.

* * *

"Hi, Mum," Jake said, giving his mother a quick kiss as he entered the kitchen.

"Hello, love," she replied, smiling up at him. "Where's Justin this evening?"

"He and Xander are keeping Warren occupied," Jake told her. "There's this place we know that's in dire need of someone to sort it out." That was as much as he was ever telling him mother about the _Pole Star._

Frankie sighed. "I still don't know what you see in that boy," she said. Jake couldn't help but smile; he could tell she was saying it more out of habit than anger, and that was such a big step. Justin was still convinced she would hate him until the day she died.

"He's not a boy anymore," Jake reminded her. "He was there for me when I really needed someone, when he didn't have to be. I just wish we'd understood sooner, before anyone else got hurt."

"I wish I understood now," he mother grumbled.

"I don't really know how to explain it," Jake said. That wasn't entirely true, but he wasn't about to explain about the magic they'd done together. He was keeping his mother as far away from the supernatural as possible. "We fit, that's the best way I can put it. We fit _perfectly._ "

Frankie shook her head. "Well at least I've got you to myself this evening," she said.

Jake grinned. "Has Newt sneaked out to see Lauren again?" he asked. The kid thought he was being subtle, but the entire household knew what a teenager in love looked like.

"I don't think so," Frankie said. "He got a text and said he had to go and meet someone, but he didn't look happy enough for it to be Lauren. He didn't really look happy at all," she finished thoughtfully.

"Maybe it's that friend of his we're not supposed to know about?" Jake suggested. What had Justin said his name was? "Eli, that's it."

Frankie drew in a sharp breath. "Are you sure that's the name?"

"Pretty sure," Jake said, surprised by his mother's reaction. "Justin said he looked shifty after mentioning him, said he was a friend from before he came here."

"He was," Frankie said, relaxing a little.

"All I know is Newt was thinking of talking to him about whatever it is Justin's not telling us about."

Jake was trying to reassure his mother, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Frankie went still for a moment, then turned to stare distractedly at the door to Newt's room. "I promised I wouldn't check up on him," she said uncertainly. "I don't want him to think I don't trust him."

"What is it, Mum?" Jake asked. A variety of unpleasant possibilities occurred to him. Could Newt be tangled up with something illegal? Drugs?

Frankie didn't answer. Instead she pressed her lips into a determined line, marched over to Newt's room and opened the door. She made straight for the bedside cabinet and pulled a pill bottle out of the drawer. "Oh no," she said softly, staring at the nearly full bottle.

The pain in her voice alarmed Jake. "What's going on?" he asked. "What are those?"

"These are what Newt takes to control his schizophrenia," Frankie said sadly. "But he's stopped taking them." She shook the bottle for emphasis.

Jake tried to control his shock. He'd had no idea that Newt suffered from anything, never mind something so major. Which was the point of the pills, he supposed. "I take it he can't really have seen this Eli, then?"

Frankie shook her head. "Eli Jones was a friend Newt made at a care home. He hung himself. Newt was the one to find the body."

Jake was appalled. "Poor guy," he said. "I can't imagine what that must have been like for him."

"He had a complete breakdown," Frankie said. Jake wished he was surprised. "He couldn't accept that Eli was dead, and..." She broke off and took a deep breath. "I'm told it wasn't pretty. If he thinks he's been talking to Eli again..."

It was on the tip of Jake's tongue to tell his mum she should have told him or Justin. Justin would have been able to figure out a way to monitor Newt's condition without him knowing, probably. That would have kept everyone happy.

Except not. Jake would never have been able to convince him mother that they could do that without convincing her that magic was real, and he really didn't want to do that. Someone in this family should keep their innocence, he thought. He still had enough trouble sleeping at night knowing what was out there, and that was despite having Justin to share it with.

"Are you going to confront him about his meds?" he asked instead. Frankie nodded. "Would you like some company?"

"I don't want him to think we're ganging up on him," Frankie said dubiously.

Jake nodded. He wouldn't have appreciated too many people when he was at his most depressed either. "I'll stay in my room when he gets back, then," he said. "Just shout for me if you want the support. We don't want him thinking we aren't taking this seriously either."

Jake had every intention of staying in and bolstering his mother's confidence if need be, but half an hour later Justin sent him a text.

Jake left the house at a dead run.

* * *

Fletch practically bounded into his room to find Nicky taking his shirt off. "OK, impressive," he said, "but it's a bit late to be going fishing."

Nicky looked at him strangely. "What?" he asked.

«Famous picture of Putin,» Fletch said, unable to remember the Russian for photograph. He gave up and switched back to English. "You know, when he spent the day fishing with no shirt on so he'd look all macho?"

Nicky puffed up. "You think I look like Putin?" he asked, clearly pleased at the thought.

"You have more hair," Fletch reassured him. To be fair, while Putin was in good shape for however old he was, Nicky took his keep fit regime seriously. He might be useless in a fight, but he looked the part.

Nicky preened for several seconds before looking narrowly at Fletch. «What do you want?» he demanded in Russian.

«Nothing,» Fletch said, fairly honestly. "You just distracted me before I could ask what we're doing this evening. He grinned brightly.

Nicky gave him a look containing a disappointing amount of suspicion. " _We_ are doing nothing," he said.

"Oh, come on," Fletch protested, possibly a little over-dramatically if Nicky's eye-roll was anything to go by. "We've pretty much got the whole house to ourselves. Mr Harris won't be back from that club for hours, Polly and Mr Wells are patrolling, Josh has locked himself in his room with his guitar and Ste is at work. How can you possibly not take advantage of that?"

"I am spending evening with lovely Sasha," Nicky said, smirking at Fletch. "At her house."

"You are no fun," Fletch told him. He pouted for extra emphasis.

"I will have much fun," Nicky disagreed. "Also shower. You go play with swords or whatever." He slung a towel over his shoulder and started gathering up toiletries.

Fletch sighed. "When you get back, I want details," he said. "I've got to get my thrills somewhere." He'd persuade Polly that Mr Harris wouldn't really mind them going out together eventually, but for now jerking off in the shower was as exciting as his sex life got.

"I am not man who kisses and tells," Nicky said loftily. Fletch instantly regretted ever introducing him to that phrase.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Fletch called after him as Nicky headed for the bathroom. The idea of Nicky not boasting about his evening with Sasha was just plain ridiculous. He had boasted every other time. Fletch would have checked with Sasha to see if he was exaggerating, but he didn't think she'd be happy with either of them and Nicky could be a real bastard when he was trying. Also see the aforementioned lack of excitement.

As he wandered downstairs, Fletch pondered his predicament. He basically had the house to himself for the next few hours, and he didn't know what to do with it. How sad was that? Maybe he should watch _Home Alone_ for ideas.

Oh, except there was something he'd been meaning to look up in the library. If only he could remem—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the Putin thing is anachronistic but I don't care, it was too much fun not to include.
> 
> Newt hallucinating Eli is completely canon Hollyoaks. I had to invent his surname; I think it was given on the show at least once, but the internet is being uncooperative.


	14. Countdown: 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren gets some proof.
> 
> The night is still young.

"A strip club," Warren said, unimpressed.

"Exotic dancing, please," Harris said brightly. "It's an important distinction."

Warren favoured him with a withering glare before turning back to Justin. "Why are you wasting my time bringing me to an 'exotic dancing' club?" He'd better have a damn good reason for dragging Warren all the way out to this unimpressive-looking place.

"Two reasons," Justin said as they headed towards the bar. "First, I can show you some proof of what we talked about before. This place serves exotic people as well."

"Exotic people." Warren wondered what cheap makeup jobs he was going to be shown. "You're still going on about that fairy story?" he sneered.

"No faeries, thank God," Harris chipped in. "They're vicious bastards and they will not give up once they've decided to play with you. Hi there," he finished, smiling at the barman.

The barman looked at him cautiously. "Mr Grace is in his office, if you want him," he said respectfully. Warren was surprised that Harris got treated so carefully when he acted like such an idiot.

"Nah," Harris said easily, "we're just here to be sociable tonight. Three beers please."

Warren looked around the club as the barman busied himself at the taps. Harris could say what he liked, but 'exotic dancing' was several notches more subtle than the _Pole Star_ was aiming for. Besides... "I don't see any demons," he told Justin with quiet pointedness.

"Not in here, obviously," Justin replied just as quietly. "They don't want to scare the punters."

Warren was still giving Justin one of his best sceptical looks when Harris thrust a beer into his hand. "Is there anyone in the other bar?" Harris asked the barman.

The barman actually went pale, Warren noted with interest. "It's all very peaceable, sir," he said hurriedly. "Nothing you'd disapprove of."

Harris rolled his eyes. "I said this was a social visit, didn't I? Why does nobody believe me? It's not like I'd use the front door if we were being unsociable."

"This is only the third time you've been here," Justin pointed out, "and the first time you didn't use the front door."

"The first time we were being unsociable," Harris countered. Warren wasn't sure what to think, especially when Justin rolled his eyes. "Anyway," Harris continued to the barman, "mind if we go through? I'm pretty sure I know the way."

"I'll show you through," the barman said quickly.

Harris waved him away. "You've got a bar to tend," he said. He looked around and grinned. "Hugo can take us. Hey Hugo, how are you doing, buddy?"

Hugo, if that was the bouncer's name, gave the barman a faintly distressed look. Warren knew the type; burly and unimaginative, he out-massed Harris by a fair bit. He didn't seem happy when the barman shrugged and nodded, but he did lead them over to a side door.

"Oh, I hope it's not poker night," Harris said as they threaded their way through a chaotic back of house. "I always feel obliged to try to win, and they always let me, and Andrew's allergic to cats."

"Poker night is Friday," Justin said, cutting off the flow of babble. He pointed to a tattered poster that appeared to confirm what he said. "Are you nervous about this?"

"Hell yes," Harris responded instantly. "Walking into a demon bar is a good way of starting a fight unless everyone knows you. I've got backup on speed dial, but there's way too much chance one of you will get hurt."

They went through another door and Warren abruptly stopped listening. There weren't many people in the small bar area and some of them looked perfectly normal, but... A pair of long-haired dwarfs sat at one table, except their proportions were wrong for all the short people Warren had ever met. At the next table, a very tall cross between a worm and an insect sipped something thick from a quart jar. Compared to them, the young couple in the dated clothing looked positively ordinary. "What the hell?" Warren couldn't help but say. Justin gave him a wry look.

"Did anyone order takeaway," the young man asked, "or is this all for me?" He made to stand but his girlfriend grabbed him by the arm.

"Don't be an idiot, Evan," she hissed. Beside him, Warren noticed Harris tense for action, his eyes locked on the man. Hugo had made himself scarce.

The barman broke the moment by dropping a dustpan and brush on the bar. Harris looked over to him and laughed. "OK, point taken," he said, visible relaxing.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Evan demanded.

"It means that if I kill you, I have to clean up afterwards," Harris replied. "Since I'm not actually here to start a fight, that's fair enough."

"If you killed me?" the man said furiously. "What makes you think—"

"He's a Watcher," the woman interrupted.

"Yeah? And?"

"He's the White Knight," one of the dwarfs said in a surprisingly pleasant contralto. "I can smell the Hellmouth on him."

"Hey," Harris objected, "I've showered since leaving Sunnydale. Plenty of times."

Evan sat down hurriedly. "Sorry," he said in a small voice, "I didn't mean... I mean I was just kidding around."

"No harm, no foul," Harris said breezily. "Though if you're feeling generous, could you put on your game face for a minute? These guys have never met a vampire before."

"Uh, OK," the man said uncertainly. He paused a second, then nervously asked, "You're not going to...? OK, shutting up now." Then his face rippled.

Warren took an involuntary step backwards. The dwarfs he could write off as movie-grade prosthetics, and the worm-insect thing could be an expensive piece of animatronics (at least until it stood up... and up... and walked to the bar for a refill), but seeing a face change in front of him, that he had no explanation for. In the blink of an eye, the man — vampire — had ridges on his forehead, elongated and sharp-looking canines, and brilliant yellow eyes.

"How do you do that?" Justin asked. He sounded fascinated, not at all like the sullen, uncertain kid Warren had first met a year or two ago. "I mean, foreheads don't naturally want to crinkle up. How do you make it shift?"

The vampire looked even more disconcerted. "I dunno," he mumbled. "It just happens."

"Calm down, Doc," Harris said before Justin could fire off any more questions. "Let the nice bloodsucker drink in peace, we're not here to disturb people. Oh, unless anyone knows why something would try to dig up a Nabraxis Seal?"

The worm-insect made a noise that might have been a laugh. "Only Bodiless care," it gurgled. "No use to us."

"It enhances a demon's powers," Harris countered.

"Only Bodiless," it repeated.

"Hell-demons," one of the dwarfs said disgustedly. "They steal bodies without waiting for them to be dead. Nasty creatures, always stirring things up and stinking of sulphur."

"Huh," Harris said reflectively. "You learn something new every day. Well, since you've all be so helpful and everything, I'll pay for the next round of drinks."

That went down well, Warren was not surprised to notice. Xander Harris was very good at putting people at their ease. Given the way he'd been treated here, that probably meant he was a lot more dangerous than he looked.

"So, White Knight?" Justin asked as they sat around a table.

Harris sighed. "You stare down one two hundred and fifty year old vampire and you're saddled with a nickname for life," he grumbled. "Basically I've been friends with the longest-lived Vampire Slayer since we were fifteen and I'm still alive. That's enough to get you a reputation even if you are just the comic relief."

Yeah, no. Warren didn't believe for a moment that was all there was to it. He didn't want to think harder about it, though, or about all the other things that had been thrown at him since he had walked into this room. He knew a distraction when he saw one, and he was pretty sure Justin and Harris wanted him off balance. He wasn't about to cooperate.

"What's the other reason you want me here?" he asked.

"Huh?" Justin said intelligently.

"You said there were two reasons you brought me here. The show and tell is obviously one. What's the other?"

Harris, to his credit, didn't beat around the bush. "This place needs help," he said bluntly. "The previous owner was a nasty piece of work. Nobody cried when we took her out."

"And what did she do to earn that?" Warren asked. That had sounded a lot like a veiled threat.

Harris, interestingly, looked at Justin.

"Slavery," Justin said shortly. His face was closed down.

"He needs to know more if he's going to think about this, J," Harris said gently.

"And I'd rather this place burned to the ground," Justin fired back. "We don't always get what we want."

Harris sighed and turned back to Warren. "She was very good at taking vulnerable people, twisting them around until they'd agree to anything she said, then magically forcing them to do her bidding. Once she was done, she would sell them on and find someone new to break. A lot of people never moved away or ran off like everyone assumed."

Interesting, Warren thought. From the angry set of his shoulders, Justin had been involved in this somehow. He hadn't been in the best of places when Warren threw him out, but on the other hand Warren wouldn't have called him vulnerable. Oh, but Jake Dean had been. The couple of days before Jake and Justin had got together, something had happened to throw the entire family into shock, and now Justin took threats to Jake deadly seriously. That was useful to know.

First things first. Warren turned back to Harris. "Let's see if I've got this straight," he said. "You stopped the slave business, whoever bought the place can't make ends meet and you want me to ride in to the rescue?"

"Close," Harris admitted. "The previous owner didn't legally exist, so all the paperwork is in the name of her accountant. He's a nice guy, but he can't manage the staff and he doesn't know how to run the place. He's lost control and he's sinking fast."

"It infuriated Jake," Justin said grumpily. "If he wasn't so busy getting the landscaping business going, he'd be sorting this place out." He sounded like he couldn't believe Jake was even considering it, adding weight to Warren's theory.

"So what's in it for me?" Warren asked.

"Tapping into a new and profitable clientele for a pretty small outlay," Harris said much too smoothly.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing that won't be obvious in the paperwork."

Justin looked like he was about to say something pointed when his phone chirped. He looked at the incoming text and grimaced. "I've got to go," he said. "I promised Newt I'd be there for him if this guy went after him, and it looks like he's going after him big time." He tapped a reply out rapidly.

"Go," Harris said, flapping his hands at Justin. "Be a good foster brother-in-law or whatever you are. You need any backup?"

"Only if I can't get hold of Calvin," Justin said as he stood up. "A policeman in uniform should make the guy stop and think."

"So he does have a use," Warren said sarcastically. Justin rolled his eyes and headed out.

Harris grinned. "How about I introduce you to Bill? He can tell you about all the stuff I don't know and don't care about."

Warren looked at him coolly, recognising the over-friendly sell for what it was. "What happens if I say no?" he asked.

"I look for someone else who's up to running a demon bar and a business," Harris replied. He grin became rueful. "The odds aren't looking good. I don't know the right kind of people."

"Not Jack Osborne?"

"For the borderline illegal stuff?"

Warren nodded. That was pretty much what he had thought. Harris must be counting on the attraction of being able to dictate his own terms. "Come on then," he said, "let's see this damsel in distress of yours."

He wouldn't buy the business, Warren knew that already. Louise wouldn't be comfortable with him owning a strip club and he wouldn't do that to her. On the other hand, it sounded like what this place really needed was a general manager with flexible morals, and Warren knew plenty of people who fit that description. It wouldn't hurt to lend a hand himself from time to time, get in good with the staff and customers. You never knew what could come from contacts like that.

Yes, this could be quite a nice little opportunity.


	15. Countdown: 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt gets caught. Twice.
> 
> The night is about to become busy.

This was beyond stupid, Newt thought to himself. He should call someone, let them know what he was doing. Eli, he could call Eli... except Eli never carried a phone because he was paranoid about being tracked. And there wasn't anyone else he could trust with this, in case it turned out to be a trap. But...

He looked again at Gaz's text. "DADS OUT U MAN ENUF 2 FIND OUT?"

Oh, he was not getting away with that. Anything Gaz could handle, he could handle better. He was not going to be the one to back down in this game of chicken they were playing. It wasn't his reputation that would be in the mud if word of this got around at school. Though maybe he ought to warn Lauren...

No, she'd just say something about wanting to watch, and Newt would be too rattled by that to do anything. It was bad enough just imagining her reaction.

Angrily Newt shoved his phone back in his pocket and knocked on the door.

Gaz looked... different. He wasn't wearing anything different when he answered the door, just his normal jeans and white T-shirt, but there was something about the way he stood there, the way he looked at Newt.

Time to up your game, Newt reminded himself. "You gonna let me in," he challenged, "or are we doing this on the street?" That would worry Gaz.

Gaz just smirked. "Kinky," he said, but stood aside to let Newt in. Newt felt himself flush and scowled. How did Gaz manage to do that to him? Every time he threw an insult at Gaz when they were alone, Gaz laughed it off like Newt was teasing or something.

Stepping inside didn't help Newt regain his balance. He had this idea of what Gaz's house should be like that went with his low opinion of Gaz himself. It would be rough, he told himself, dim and plain. Not exactly dirty, but... shabby. Yeah, that was the word. Not somewhere Newt would want to spend any time.

The living room was nothing like that. It wasn't clean and neat, but it was kind of homely. Newt could imagine Frankie sitting down there without giving in to the urge to tidy everything within reach. That didn't make Newt any more easy about being there himself. He turned to say something sarcastic to Gaz, only to find the other boy right up in his space.

"I figured we could start out here," Gaz said huskily. "We can move somewhere more comfortable later. That OK with you?"

"Uh..." It took Newt several seconds to tear his attention away from Gaz's eyes and realise he was supposed to say something. He opened his mouth to tell Gaz he was mad if he thought anything 'comfortable' was happening, but Gaz didn't give him the chance.

Newt had kind of been hoping his memory had exaggerated how good kissing Gaz had felt. No such luck. He quickly became too caught up in sensations of hot-wet-good to remember that he didn't want this, didn't want _Gaz._ Everything began and ended with the fight for control, whether he or Gaz was in charge of this.

When Gaz's hand snuck under his T-shirt, Newt began to think he wasn't the one in charge.

"Dreamed of this," Gaz murmured. He licked and kissed his way along Newt's jaw, and fuck but it felt good when he reached Newt's ear. He whined when Newt stroked his spine and even that was a turn-on, damn it. Newt was lost and he knew it, and when the hell had he given his hands permission to push Gaz's T-shirt up?

"Sure you have," he managed to say. He was going down, but he'd go down fighting.

"Dreamed of it for years, kiddo," Gaz replied. There was something wrong with that, but Newt abruptly forgot about it when Gaz stepped back and pulled his T-shirt off. Holy shit, Newt thought, maybe he was gay after all because a straight guy really shouldn't find a shirtless Gaz hot. He wasn't muscular, he didn't have a six-pack, but somehow or other he was still stupidly attractive.

Gaz actually blushed under Newt's gaze. "Your turn," he said, almost shyly.

My turn for what, Newt thought before his brain caught up. Seconds later his T-shirt joined Gaz's on the floor and Newt was attacking Gaz's mouth again. His hands were all over Gaz and Gaz's were all over him, and it was just incredible. He had never expected to get a kick out of coaxing moans out of Gaz, but the noises he got when he sucked at the base of Gaz's neck were so good. He wanted... he wanted more.

"What the fuck?"

Newt registered the shout and the new voice, but he was still befuddled when a hand grabbed his shoulder and threw him to the ground. He blinked up owlishly to see an angry man looming over Gaz. Even in Newt's current state, the resemblance was obvious; Gaz's dad was home.

"Gaz, what the fuck is going on?" his dad demanded. He looked terrifying.

Gaz stood his ground. He glanced across and Newt and simply said, "Run." Then... Newt blinked and shook his head to clear it. It had almost looked like something leapt out of Gaz at his father.

Whatever happened, both of them staggered backwards. Newt stood cautiously, looking for an opportunity to get past Mr Bennet. An opportunity for both of them to get past — he wasn't going to leave Gaz to face this alone.

Bennet was twitching weirdly and moving further into the room. It looked almost like he was having a seizure or something, not that Newt was fool enough to ask if he was OK. "Oh shit," he heard Gaz murmur. "What...?"

Bennet levelled a peculiar look at them. "Run!" he roared.

Newt grabbed Gaz by the wrist and ran. He didn't even slow down until they were out of the house and two streets away.

"What the fuck?" Gaz gasped as they stopped for breath. "What the hell happened?" He was flushed from running and shirtless, a completely unfair distraction in Newt's opinion.

"Your dad must have come home early," he managed. "Guess he didn't like what he saw."

"What he saw? Gaz echoed incredulously. "What were you...?" He did a double take. "Where's my shirt?"

"Didn't grab it, sorry," Newt replied. He wished he had; it was a little bit too chilly to be going around without a shirt on.

Gaz looked like he was freaking out big time, not that Newt was exactly Mr Calm and Collected himself. Before they could say any more, an inarticulate yell from behind them reminded them that they needed to keep moving. They needed help, Newt thought as they hurried on. If he knew where Eli was sleeping they could hide out there for a bit, but Eli hadn't told him. Damn the guy for not carrying a phone! At the very least he could have come along and put that army training to some use. There was no one else...

Justin. Newt still didn't really know what to make of Jake's boyfriend, and he didn't reckon Justin would win a fight with Gaz's dad, but he had promised to help. Newt shot a quick text to him, just saying Gaz's dad was after them.

"What?" Gaz asked when he noticed Newt's phone. He looked kind of pale, which worried Newt more than he wanted to admit.

"Help," Newt explained. He hoped so anyway.

He was vindicated a minute later when Justin texted him back. "Find somewhere to hide out," might not have been the most useful advice ever — what did Justin think they were doing, going for a walk in the park? — but at least he promised to get them out of there. Where to go, though? Where was Gaz's dad least likely to look?

"Lauren's," he said.

"What?" Gaz asked as Newt texted furiously.

"We can hide at Lauren's place. No one would ever expect to find you there. We'll be perfectly safe."

"You'll be perfectly said," Gaz disagreed. "What makes you think she'll let me in? And if Dad does find me he'll hurt her too if she's there."

Newt's phone chimed again. "Brilliant," the message said. "I'll bring Calvin." Newt grinned.

"He might think twice about going through a policeman," he said.

They didn't speak again until they got to the blessed warmth of the Valentines'. By no coincidence, that was when the flaw in Newt's plan became glaringly obvious.

"Why are you covered in hickeys?" Lauren demanded. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes promised a painful death if she didn't like his answer. "Both of you. Who have you been kissing?" Newt didn't know what to say. He hadn't mentioned the whole business of Gaz coming on to him because it was ridiculous and, if he was honest, it always made him look stupid. Which was probably Gaz's plan.

"All I know is my dad wants to kill me," Gaz whined.

"We, uh, I..." Newt trailed off under Lauren's glare.

Lauren's sister Sasha looked them up and down. "You've got to admit they'd look hot kissing," she said amusedly.

Her boyfriend shuddered. "No they wouldn't," he said in a deep Russian accent.

Lauren ignored them. "Explain. Now."

"Fuck you," Gaz said. Now they weren't running he was beginning to get hysterical. Newt couldn't help being a bit concerned. "Just... fuck you."

"No chance," Lauren told him scornfully. "If you thought I hated you before—"

"That's not what you said last week," Gaz fired back. Lauren stopped abruptly. Newt felt his mouth drop open.

"You didn't," he said. "Lauren, tell me you didn't."

Sasha snorted while Lauren pulled herself together. "Two boyfriends? Getting a bit greedy there, Lauren."

"Shut up," Lauren snapped. "It didn't mean anything."

"It still happened," Newt retorted, "and with _him._ "

"Fuck you too," Gaz shouted. He stepped back, pulling out his phone.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lauren demanded.

"Calling someone who actually gives a shit," Gaz shot back. He turned his back on them. Lauren looked like she wanted to shout at him some more, but Newt didn't give her the chance.

"You went out with him?" he said. "After everything you said?" That was the bit he couldn't get his head around. Lauren despised Gaz, but she still cheated on Newt with him. "You kissed him?"

"I wasn't... I let him kiss me. I did not look like I lost a fight with an octopus."

"I was trying to freak him out!" Just saying that made Newt feel weird. He ignored it in favour of glaring at Lauren.

Lauren laughed in his face. "If you meant that, you'd have told me about it," she said.

"Like you told me," Newt snapped back.

The rattle of the door stopped them saying anything more unforgivable. "Well well, what's going on here?" Calvin Valentine asked as he stepped inside. He was still in uniform and looking way too pleased with himself. Behind him, Justin rolled his eyes.

"Lauren cheated on me," Newt fumed.

"Newt cheated on me," Lauren countered.

"With the same person," Sasha said grinning.

Her boyfriend rolled his eyes. "Crazy," he said. "All crazy."

"Whoa, whoa, let's all calm down here a moment," Calvin said. He sounded more amused than anything. Newt glared at him.

Justin managed to look like he was taking this at least a bit more seriously. "Newt, you said something about Gaz's dad being after you?" he asked. "I take it he caught you two together?"

"Kissing," Newt agreed before anyone could imply anything else. He tried not to blush when Calvin stared at the bruise Gaz had sucked on his collarbone. "He was furious, I thought he was having a seizure for a minute. Then he shouted at us to run, and we did."

"You think he means you harm?" Calvin asked.

"He wasn't about to give us a prize," Gaz said bitterly. He shoved his phone back in his pocket as he rejoined the conversation.

"He's a bigot," Newt agreed. "He wasn't happy with Gaz and I'm pretty sure he wants to kill me."

Calvin started asking Gaz stupid questions about what his father was like. Newt didn't pay attention. He had caught sight of Eli at the window, gesturing at Newt before he dropped down out of sight.

"I'm going out," Newt announced abruptly. "I need some air." What he really needed was to shout at his best friend for the crap advice he'd given.

"Just a sec," Justin said as Newt passed him. He quickly pulled off his sweatshirt and handed it to Newt. "Put this on. It's warm and you won't stick out so much."

"Uh, thanks," Newt said uncertainly. The soft grey top was so not his style, but he really didn't need any more reminders that he and Gaz were both standing around half naked.

"No problem," Justin told him as he pulled the sweatshirt on. "You just be careful, OK? Get back in here at the first sign of trouble."

Newt nodded absently and hurried out. "Eli!" he hissed the moment the door was shut. "I'm in big trouble and it's all your fault!"

"I'm sorry," Eli said, his voice low and urgent too. "He should have been out of the house for hours, I don't know what happened."

For the second time in only a few minutes, Newt felt his jaw open in shock. "You knew?" he asked incredulously. "How did you know I was going round to Gaz's? I didn't tell anyone."

"I was just looking out for you, kiddo," Eli said weakly.

"Have you been talking to Gaz?" Newt demanded. "Oh God, you have been. You told me that he'd back down, and all this time you've been talking to him behind my back."

"No!" Eli protested. "Newt, it's not what it looks like. I've never talked to him."

"Sure," Newt said scornfully. "It'll be perfectly safe, Newt. He'll freak out first, Newt. You're supposed to be my best friend. How am I supposed to trust you after this?"

"I'm sorry," Eli repeated. "It's..."

The sudden widening of Eli's eyes was the only warning Newt got before he was spun around and slammed against the wall. "Wha?" he managed to blurt out.

Mr Townsend scowled at him. He was pinning Newt to the wall with one hand while the other had firm hold of Eli's throat. Beside him stood a guy Newt recognised from school, one of the sixth-formers who hung around with Sasha.

"You know," Townsend ground out, "when Geoff Bennet told me he'd caught his son with a fag, I was sure it was that stupid priest's fault. It never even occurred to me that a self-absorbed prick like you would have actually done something yourself. If I'd known you were interested in summoning, well, we could have had so much fun. But seriously, this was the best you could come up with?" He shook Eli, who let out a choked gasp.

"Leave him alone," Newt shouted. He tried to lunge at Townsend, or at least shove him away. Townsend didn't budge an inch. Newt desperately switched his attention to the sixth-former. "Don't just stand there," he yelled, "help!"

The guy didn't so much as twitch. He just stood there, staring straight ahead as if he'd been hypnotised. What the hell was going on, Newt wondered.

Townsend sighed. "Now you've gone and alerted your little friends inside," he said, almost sounding bored with the whole business. "Oh well, it was time I left a message for the Watchers anyway. Fletcher, follow me," he said to the sixth-former.

Not waiting for a response, Townsend dragged Newt and Eli with him to the front door. Newt tried to dig his heels in, but he might as well not have bothered for all the good it did. Then Townsend stared at the door, which promptly blew off its hinges.

Fuck, Newt thought.


	16. Boom Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Des makes his move.

"I don't know what happened," the teenaged skinhead insisted. Nikolai didn't care. His plans for the evening had involved as few people as possible interfering with his time with Sasha. He'd had a plan for getting rid of Sasha's little sister Lauren, but that had been thoroughly destroyed by two shirtless boys turning up and whining about the trouble they were in. Even worse, Sasha's overprotective older brother had appeared long before he was supposed to. Nikolai would have given up and left already if Sasha didn't find it all so funny.

Apparently Lauren was not so impressed. Nikolai admired her enterprise in catching two boys for herself, but her judgement was suspect. Boys who would even think of kissing each other clearly weren't worth the effort. That this Gaz was trying to pretend he couldn't remember kissing Newt — these English had weird names — just made it all the more obvious that he wasn't suitable. Nikolai would have offered his services as a real man if he'd thought for a moment that Sasha would have gone along with it.

Truth be told, Nikolai was getting tired of these English breaking all the rules he had ever lived by. He knew what real men were like, and that they were the only men that mattered, yet these people confounded him at every turn. Harris slept with a man, but he fought better than any of Father's men. Father had even warned Nikolai not to cross Harris, and Nikolai had come to understand why. Harris only pretended to be harmless. The only person other than Nikolai in the whole house who wasn't gay was Jamie, who would be deadly if he ever took anything seriously, and the two of them were the only ones who weren't allowed to fight. Nikolai would have been insulted if he hadn't known he was out-classed. Even with the magic he had taught himself it would be dangerous, and he hadn't told the others about the magic yet. He needed some secrets of his own, damn it.

His musings were cut short by the sounds of shouting outside. Nikolai looked up in time to see the door burst open, falling to the floor some feet inside. A man stalked in dragging Newt with him, looking oddly like he was dragging something in his other hand. He threw the boy to the ground like he was nothing. The alarm bells in Nikolai's head grew more insistent when Jamie walked in behind the man, his face completely blank.

"Whoa, Des," Sasha's brother said, holding his hands out placatingly. "You know you can't beat up a kid like that, no matter how justified you think you are."

Des, whoever he was, shook his head. "You really have no idea how irrelevant you are, do you?" he said contemptuously. Then he gestured, and Nikolai was flung backwards. Some unseen force pinned him to the wall, and everyone else too as far as he could see. Magic, he thought. It must be magic, and powerful magic at that.

"It's been decades since I've had a good bloodbath," Des mused, his eyes a solid black. "Now, how's this going to go? Ah yes, little Barry Newton. Such a shame you were all here when he finally flipped."

Newt glared at him in scared defiance. His whiny friend just seemed scared, managing to whimper out, "What the fuck?"

"Didn't you know?" Des smirked. "Barry's schizophrenic. I guess he hasn't been taking his meds. He must have been hallucinating something horrible to go after all of you with a knife." He pulled a short, nasty-looking blade out of somewhere and handed it to Jamie, who took it without a word.

"You bastard," Newt hissed, and Nikolai growled his agreement. He didn't know many of the words Des had used, but he got the gist. Des was going to kill them and blame it on madness. Nikolai didn't know which part of that outraged him most.

Des gave him a truly chilling smile. "Nikolai Gregorovich Kraslov," he said. "This couldn't have gone better if I'd planned it. Daddy dearest is going to be so pissed off with the Watchers for getting you killed. Who knows how he'll retaliate? Maybe I should cut off your head and send it to him?" Nikolai growled again as Des appeared to consider this. "No," he decided, "That would be just tacky."

"There is too tacky for you?" Nikolai sneered as best he could while pinned to the wall.

"Cute," Des said, his fake smile never slipping. "It was always going to end something like this for you, Nicky. You're a weak, arrogant little boy who's helpless without his father." He turned to Jamie. "Kill Kraslov first," he commanded.

"Hell no," Nikolai spat. He might be arrogant, but he was not weak and he was not helpless. He had managed to contort his hands into the shapes he needed, and it took less than a second to hiss out the gibberish that went with them. Then he pushed at Des with everything the spell gave him.

It was enough to blow out the windows and rock Des back on his heels. Nikolai felt the pressure pinning him to the wall disappear, letting him move freely. Unfortunately it didn't seem to do more than surprise Des or knock Jamie back a few steps. Nikolai was glad about that last one; if he'd hit Jamie with the full force of the spell it would have thrown him into the wall hard enough to hurt him badly.

"Well, well," Des said, "Daddy's boy has teeth after all. Not enough to save you on my worst day, though." Whatever magic he had been using to hold them in place was now protecting him from Nikolai. He was slowly pushing back too, Nikolai could feel it, and not even breaking a sweat. Nikolai suspected that Des could overwhelm him easily and was just playing with him now. And he called Nikolai arrogant!

There was movement to his right. Nikolai risked a glance to see Sasha's brother — Calvin, that was his name — put himself in the way of Jamie.

"Easy, Fletch," he heard Calvin say. "Put the knife down. You don't want to do this."

"Careful, he's being controlled," Justin said. Nikolai didn't know the man well, just that he had been one of Nikolai's rescuers. Another quick glance showed Nikolai that Justin was standing a little behind Calvin. He was smiling grimly as he finished typing something one-handed on his phone. Something Des couldn't see, Nikolai realised, because Calvin was blocking his view. Sending for help, Nikolai sincerely hoped.

"OK, mind control," Calvin said nervously. "Fletch, I'm sorry about thi—"

Nikolai was looking away, but he could guess what happened from the screams and gasps. His next glance showed Justin pulling Calvin back, blood staining the uniform already. Nikolai frowned. The wound was low on Calvin's abdomen; his father's men had told him to aim higher if he wanted to kill someone quickly. Jamie was very good with blades, too good not to know that. Did that mean he was fighting the influence?

Sure enough, Jamie was just standing there. His face was still blank, but his knife hand was trembling. He was fighting the control, Nikolai was certain of it. "Come on," he said, "you can do this." It came out a lot less firm than he intended.

Someone started throwing things at Jamie, yelling loudly. Probably Lauren. It did no good; nothing got close to him, seeming to hit an invisible wall.

Nikolai was looking Jamie in the eyes as much as he dared, but he still saw Des smirk and reach into a pocket. Des pulled out a medallion of some sort and held it up towards Jamie. "Do as you're told, Fletcher," he said.

One foot shifted forwards. Jamie's whole body was shaking now, and blood started trickling from his nose. "Jamie, please," Nikolai said softly. He was begging and he knew it. He didn't care. His horribly cheerful friend was being forced to kill and it was _wrong._ "Is no one better at doing what you're told not to."

With a strangled scream, Jamie suddenly whirled and threw the knife at Des. It smashed through the medallion and embedded itself in Des's palm. "Bastard!" Jamie yelled, and collapsed.

"Jamie!" The step towards his friend was Nikolai's undoing. While his concentration lapsed, Des pushed. It wasn't as strong as before, but there was still enough power in it to slam Nikolai painfully back against the wall.

"You are seriously beginning to piss me off," Des snarled. Nikolai watched dazedly as he pulled the knife out of his hand like it was nothing. Another quick gesture and everyone was pinned in place again. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find those things?" Des continued. "Nobody believes enough any more, it's impossible to get them made. Now—"

Then he screamed.

* * *

"Gaz, slow down," Kieron said into his phone. "Take a deep breath and tell me where you are."

John Paul shared a look with his brother. When he had brought Kieron here to Matthew's place to calm him down and figure out what to do about the blackmail, he hadn't counted on the whole situation blowing up so quickly. He had barely had time to fill Matthew in, skipping tactfully over just what hold Townsend had over the priest, when Kieron got a phone call. From Gaz, apparently in a panic. This, John Paul thought sadly, was going to get messy fast.

"He's gay, isn't he?" Matthew murmured. John Paul tried not to react. Evidently he failed, because Matthew nodded. "I thought so. You're a bit predictable about your crusades."

John Paul could feel his ears going red. "He's a priest," he murmured back, "he's sworn off sex anyway." Matthew just smirked at him.

"Stay put," Kieron said firmly but kindly. "I'll be right there, and we can sort it all out then. See you in a few minutes." He pocketed his phone and grabbed his scarf and coat.

"I'm coming with you," John Paul announced, pulling on his own jacket.

"I can't ask you to—" Kieron began. John Paul cut him off.

"You need a witness," he said. "You know what you're going to get accused of. You need someone there to tell the truth."

"I'm coming too," Matthew decided. "No offence, little brother, but it would be easy to question your impartiality and discredit anything you say. The more of us there are, the less that works."

John Paul didn't like it, but Matthew had a point. He turned back to Kieron. "See? You don't have to ask. We're coming with you anyway." Kieron sighed but stopped arguing at least.

"So what's going on exactly?" John Paul asked once they were out in the night air. "It sounded like Gaz was in some sort of trouble?"

"He is," Kieron said grimly. "It's complicated, but Gaz has been questioning his sexuality recently. His father just caught him kissing a boy."

"Ouch," John Paul said sympathetically. He thought back to what he'd overheard when Kieron was being threatened. "Townsend said something about his having a temper?"

Kieron nodded. "Gaz is scared for his life. I wish I was more sure he was wrong."

"Seriously?" John Paul asked. "I can see someone getting angry enough to beat up their own kid, but that's a bit extreme. Especially once the initial shock has worn off."

"Gaz looks and acts like a stereotypical skinhead," Kieron told him. "As far as I can tell, his father doesn't so much tolerate that as actively encourage it. I think the only thing that could have made what happened worse would have been to have caught Gaz kissing a black kid."

"Yeah, but still," John Paul began.

"Wait," Matthew said, "are we talking about Geoff Bennet's son here? That Gaz?" Kieron nodded. Matthew whistled. "You're right to worry. Bennet's got a temper alright, and a reputation for holding grudges. He's not going to let something like this go."

"You know him?" John Paul asked worriedly. Maybe Matthew shouldn't get involved in this.

"Slightly," Matthew admitted. "I met him in a pub once. We got on fine until he discovered I was a hairdresser. It was like I'd suddenly got the plague."

"I can see how that might have surprised him," John Paul said. Matthew was tall and tough-looking, not the type you would expect at all to spend his working day sorting out ladies' hair. "Things didn't get violent thought, did they?"

Matthew grimaced. "I had to intimidate my way out of there," he admitted.

"Oh." That wasn't good, John Paul thought. He'd better start thinking of ways to stop Gaz having to go home.

The sudden, loud sound of breaking glass from up ahead made them pause. "Is anyone else really hoping that's a coincidence?" Matthew asked.

"I'm hoping," Kieron muttered, "but I don't believe it."

As they hurried along, John Paul pulled out his phone, fully intending to alert whichever of Amy or Polly were on patrol tonight. While it wasn't any of the Council's business, he would feel a lot happier if a Slayer was nearby in case things did get violent. If they hadn't already.

Before he could hit send, a mass text arrived from Justin: "DEMON @ CALVINS HELP"

John Paul swore and started running up the steps to the little row of houses where the Valentines lived. "Matthew, Kieron," he said urgently, "I need you to stay outside and stop anyone else going in."

"What? No," Kieron protested, and Matthew growled his agreement. "I can't—"

"I'm sorry, there's no time to explain," John Paul insisted. "Please just trust me. This just got very dangerous, and you don't know how to deal with it." Not that John Paul was much better off, but at least he was appropriately armed.

The scene at the top of the steps was not encouraging. The area was littered with broken glass and the Valentines' front door was missing. John Paul could hear someone ranting as he crept forward, and he could just about make out some people pressed up against the back wall. He pulled out a hip flask as he moved and quietly unscrewed the top. Judging from where everyone was looking the demon must be...

John Paul slipped inside and sloshed the contents of his hip flask over the only person not lying against a flat surface. The holy water burned the man like acid.

"So, demon," John Paul said brightly. He was scared as all hell, but he wasn't about to show it. He was also out of any weapons that might actually hurt a demon.

"Bodiless," Justin said, peeling himself off the wall. John Paul assumed that was supposed to mean something. "Keep him busy, we've got wounded."

"Sure." John Paul grabbed a splintered length of shelving as an impromptu weapon and set about keeping the demon's attention. Justin must be really concerned about some of the wounded, he wasn't normally one to back away from a fight. Anything John Paul could do to buy him the time to make sure people didn't die was a good thing.

Unfortunately it didn't seem like there was a whole lot he could do. "Is that the best you've got left?" the demon sneered. He was breathing heavily and his skin was badly blistered where the water had struck him, but that didn't seem to be slowing him down any. "Stupid little druid. If there were more of you and you'd already done your mumbo jumbo, you might make it all the way up to being a nuisance. This?" He irritably batted aside John Paul's makeshift staff. "Even the mongrels you call demons wouldn't be worried by this. For someone who's actually clawed his way out of the Pit?" He waved his hand, and the battered remains of Calvin's settee lifted off the ground and careered towards John Paul.

John Paul was shoved violently sideways as Matthew tackled him out of the way. "I told you to stay outside," John Paul blazed, more in fear than anger.

"And let you have all the fun?" Matthew said lightly. He rolled easily to his feet. "We'll talk about this later."

John Paul was halfway upright when an unseen force grabbed them both and threw them against the wall. "There isn't going to be a later for you," the demon snarled. His eyes were a frankly creepy solid black. "And don't think that oh-so-clever little brother of yours will save you. One druid on his own couldn't light a candle without matches. Family will always let you down, _Niall._ "

"Fuck you, Des," Matthew gritted out. John Paul looked at him in surprise. He knew this... guy?

There was a shimmer in the air, and the demon jerked sideways as if he'd been slapped. "Will you stop that?" he snapped, gesturing firmly at the back of the room. John Paul couldn't see what happened, but the grunt and thud told its own story.

"Is not on his own," a deep voice gasped out. That would be the Russian kid Xander and Andrew were putting up. That wasn't good, John Paul thought, trying to keep a lid on his panic.

"I've changed my mind," the demon, Des, snarled. "I'm going to kill you last so you can see how useless you are."

"You aren't killing anyone."

John Paul managed to turn his head enough to see Kieron standing there. He had apparently found a bible or a prayer book from somewhere and was holding it up like a shield against the demon. Unfortunately Des didn't look any too impressed. "What am I," he asked, "some vampire to be scared of pictures?"

"Get out of here," Kieron said evenly. John Paul didn't think he was nearly as calm as he was trying to look. Then again, neither was John Paul.

Des rolled his eyes, which looked weird when they were solid black. "You're not much of an excuse for a priest are you?" he said. "Gay and paying so much attention to teenage boys you didn't even notice the bunch of pagans running around under your nose. Tell me, how much credit do you think that's going to get you? What's your tainted faith worth?"

Kieron flinched under the verbal assault but rallied quickly. "Let's see, shall we?" he said grimly. " _Exoricisamus te—_ "

Des screamed and threw a hand out. Kieron went flying into the wall. he stuttered on a few more words of Latin, but another slam against the wall knocked him out. From the way he was lying, John Paul was afraid his arm was broken.

On the plus side, John Paul could move again. As he staggered fully upright, he heard a strange, almost familiar sibilant word. The Russian kid, Nikolai, was gesturing at the demon and his eyes were glowing yellow. It didn't seem to be doing a lot of good, but at least it was keeping Des occupied.

Justin appeared at John Paul's side before he could waste more than a little time watching the others. "We need some protection," he said quietly, "or we'll never get anything done."

John Paul didn't much fancy their chances of getting anything done anyway, but he nodded all the same. "Find some cover, Matthew," he said without bother to look at his brother, and raised his right hand, palm outwards, to meet Justin's.

It took long, agonising seconds for them to get in synch for the warding ritual. At least it was seconds, not minutes; after Xander and Ste had been caught out by Willow, Josh had made them all practice in different pairs, getting used to the ways they each worked. It was paying off now, but they would still have been much too slow if Des hadn't been distracted.

John Paul found he was much more aware of what was going on around him than usual. Part of that was the magic being thrown about; he was acutely aware of the slick, oily blackness and the golden light that disturbed the weak natural currents of magic in the room. He knew when, long before the ritual was complete, the darkness overwhelmed the light and Nikolai was sent crashing away again. He could almost see the something that leapt off the floor to tackle Des, and he could definitely see someone — Matthew! — join in.

The ritual completed as Des threw Matthew and whatever else was attacking him to the ground. Spears of shadow appeared in his hands, flickering like flames. Before John Paul could even move, Des drove the spears into the ground. One of them pinned Matthew down, the other was several feet to his left. John Paul winced at Matthew's strangled cry of pain. Somewhere off in the distance he heard a full-blown scream, and one of the kids yelled, "Eli!"

"And stay there this time," Des snarled. He looked up to see John Paul advancing on him and gestured negligently. John Paul felt a slight shove, but the force of the magic expended itself in a bright green glow. He began to think this might actually work.

"Huh," Des huffed. "I could blow down your wards, but why bother?" He held out his hand and a knife rose up off the floor, its point aimed straight at John Paul. John Paul eyed it warily. He and Justin weren't great at protection rituals, so they had loaded their wards more against magical attacks than physical. What they had would slow down a knife, but John Paul was going to have to dodge if he wanted to stay unhurt.

Then Des grinned, and the knife turned and sped off towards Kieron.


	17. The Devil's In The Details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One demon. They've got Slayers, druids, wizards and whatever the hell Nikolai is. They're still going to need help.

Newt was terrified. He'd been worried enough about Gaz's dad coming after them, but when Des Townsend had turned up it had all gone to hell in a handbasket. Now Calvin, Eli and the hairdresser guy Matthew were all badly hurt, and Newt was trapped in the middle of what he would swear was a comic-book superhero fight. Sasha's boyfriend kept picking himself up and throwing these invisible bolts at Mr Townsend, no matter how often Townsend knocked him down. Now Justin and his friend had put up some kind of forcefield that Townsend's attacks were splashing off. It was unbelievable, but it was happening right in front of Newt's eyes.

Then Townsend slowly levitated a knife up off the ground. Newt did not like the look in his eyes. "Get ready to dodge," he murmured to Gaz and Lauren. Townsend looked pissed off enough to go for any of them.

"No!" Gaz yelled as the knife shot at Father Kieron. But before it could hit, a girl dived through the doorway, plucked the knife out of the air and rolled back to her feet in one smooth motion. That, Newt thought, was just freaking impossible.

"Did no one ever tell you it's dangerous to play with knives?" the girl snarked at Townsend. Newt recognised her as a sixth-former, another one of Sasha's friends. He didn't recognise the man who looked cautiously through the doorway after her, but apparently Justin did.

"Andrew, it's some kind of bodiless demon," Justin shouted as the girl advanced on Townsend. "It doesn't like exorcisms."

"Oh," the man said. "Oh! Right!" He dug into the satchel he was carrying.

"Exorcism, huh?" Lauren muttered. Newt was too caught up watching the sixth-form girl take on Mr Townsend. She fought fast and furious, but she couldn't seem to land a blow.

There was a sudden crack and two more people appeared out of thin air in the middle of the room. Newt recognised the girl as another of Sasha's friends. He didn't have time to worry about the boy; the first girl took advantage of Mr Townsend's momentary distraction to bury the knife in his chest.

"Ow," Townsend said, deadpan. He back-handed the first girl into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. He ought to be dead, Newt thought. Townsend had a knife sticking through where his heart should be. He ought to be dead, and none of the people fighting him seemed to be freaked out about this.

"Polly!" the second girl shouted. She leapt forwards to the attack with much the same speed and skill as the first one had.

"I'm OK," said the first girl, evidently Polly. "He hits like an angry troll."

"Then don't get hit."

Newt couldn't follow the fight after that. The girls moved so quickly, punching and kicking with a skill Newt could only gape at. Unfortunately Mr Townsend seemed to be able to take it, even if he couldn't land any blows of his own.

"What the hell is this?" Justin muttered. Newt tore his attention away from the fight to see him pulling his fingers back from the wavery black thing pinning Matthew the hairdresser to the ground.

"Hell might be the right word," his friend said unhappily. "This isn't just dark magic, this is pure black." Magic, Newt thought numbly. They were having a serious conversation with magic in it.

Justin frowned. "There's nothing solid about it, though," he said. "It isn't really doing anything to his body. How is it hurting him, never mind pinning him down?"

His friend peered closely, then closed his eyes and sort of felt around in the air for a moment. "Shit," he said, paling. "Don't try to move, Matthew. Justin's right, it isn't pinning your body. It's... For lack of a better term, it's nailing down your soul. If you manage to move, you'll kill yourself."

"No moving, got it," Matthew said, staring wide-eyed at the black shaft sticking out of his chest. He looked over at Justin's friend. "We're going to have a long talk when this is over, little brother."

Newt ignored the by-play and scrambled up to Eli. "You hear that?" he asked his best friend. "No moving. You've done your bit."

"I'm sorry, Newt," Eli gasped out. He looked terribly pale. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I just wanted—" He cut off with a groan.

Newt looked up at Justin. "Can you help him?" he begged. "Please?"

Justin looked at him oddly. "Newt, there's—"

"Nothing we can do right now," Justin's friend cut in, earning his own odd look from Justin. "Anything we try now would just give Des an opportunity to make this worse."

Newt hated it that he was right. He stood up and asked determinedly, "So how do we get rid of him?"

"Andrew's on it," Justin told him.

Andrew, the man at the door, was by now brandishing a cross at Townsend. " _Regna terrae,_ " he began, reading from a small notebook in his other hand, " _cantate Deo, psall—_ "

Townsend roared, and a burst of power erupted around him. Newt was protected by Justin's force-field — spell — whatever. The girls weren't so lucky. Polly went flying into Andrew, who hit the wall hard and didn't get up. The boy who came with the other girl shouted and waved his... wand? Whatever, the girl slowed in her headlong flight towards the opposite wall. Townsend turned towards her as she bounced back at him, only to be hit by Sasha's boyfriend Nikolai's invisible bolt. This time when Mr Townsend threw a bolt back, Wand Boy did something and a shield appeared in the bolt's path. It flared brightly and alarming cracks appeared in it, but apparently it did its job. The quick succession of spells Wand Boy threw at Townsend were less effective.

"Andrew!" Newt's attention was drawn back to the door as another man came charging in. He paused a moment to check on Andrew before glaring at Townsend. "You are going down," he snarled.

"This is getting ridiculous," Townsend said. He sounded more exasperated than anything else. "I don't have enough after-school rejects who won't stay down when they're told, I have to have the Zeppo complain at me? What are you going to do, talk me to death?"

"You wish," the man said, ducking whatever it was Townsend tried to do to him. He waited until Polly threw herself back into the fray and Townsend was fully occupied with the girls before calling "Draco!"

Wand Boy looked over. The man pointed at the front wall and mimed an explosion. "Give us the best cover you can," the man added.

Wand Boy — Draco — nodded. He looked incredibly nervous, but as Newt watched he straightened up and took on a determined air. Raising his wand, he slashed it forwards and yelled, " _Bombarda!_ "

The wall blew out, showering Townsend and the girls with brick dust. Outside, Newt could see three more people moving in. He recognised Jake and yet another sixth former, but he didn't know the third guy.

Moving swiftly, Townsend elbowed the second girl in the face and thrust his hand out at Draco. Draco's shield was a little slow and fractured almost instantly. The boy was thrown backwards a few feet and landed heavily.

The girl growled — actually growled — and redoubled her efforts. "Don't you even touch him," she snarled.

Townsend managed to push her away a little. "What are you going to do about it, Slayer?" he sneered, and gestured. Instead of throwing her into the wall, the bolt crackled against one of Draco's shields.

"It's alright, Amy," Draco said. "I'm OK." He didn't look OK, Newt thought. He was struggling to get upright, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He still looked determined though, and his wand was moving fast.

Justin and his friends abruptly started moving and chanting. They were circling Townsend slowly, very much focused on him, Newt realised. More magic, but it was taking them longer to get it together than Draco or Nikolai. Townsend seemed to realise it too; he sent bolt after bolt at them. Draco blocked furiously, but Newt could see him tiring, slowing. At some point he wasn't going to be fast enough.

"We have to do something," he said quietly. "Distract him somehow."

Gaz snorted. "How? You going to kiss him too?"

Before Newt could decide on a good enough put-down, his phone chimed with an incoming message. "We're going to exorcise him," Lauren declared. "I found this online, I sent you the link. Join in when you're ready."

Newt had his phone out and the browser open in record time. "How do we even know it'll work?" Gaz muttered, though he too was typing at his phone.

" _Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spritus,_ " Lauren spat out as if she was reading a particularly angry poem. Townsend screamed and gestured at her, but whatever he was trying to do bounced off a shield.

"It works," Newt said. Gaz scowled at him, but quickly took up the chant when Lauren was forced to dodge.

The page finally loaded, and Newt paled. It was in Latin. Well, obviously it was in Latin, but it hadn't really dawned on him that he was going to have to read Latin until it was there in front of him. He had trouble reading English, and he knew what those words meant.

When another partially blocked bolt had Gaz fumble and drop his phone, Newt didn't have a choice. " _Er-go,_ " he sounded out slowly and carefully, " _omnis legis diab—_ " That was as far as he'd got before he was slapped backwards and lost his concentration, but by that time Lauren was already picking up the words. Moments later Gaz joined her.

Townsend managed to throw Polly into Amy, ducked low and shoved his hands forward in a wide arc. Draco got a shield up, but it did little more than glitter as the wave of power passed through. Newt's phone sparked and died, as did Lauren's and Gaz's.

"Fuck," Gaz said succinctly.

"I have had enough of this shit," Townsend roared. He didn't move, but power radiated off him in all directions. Newt closed his eyes and braced himself to be slammed into the wall again.

When nothing happened, Newt cautiously opened his eyes. "Wow," he said.

A pentagram of bright white light was floating in the air, surrounding Mr Townsend. It was beautiful. Somehow Newt didn't think that was what Townsend had been trying to do.

"That's fucking impossible," Townsend snapped. He couldn't seem to move past the outer circle, and none of his gesturing did anything. "You can't make a Devil's Trap out of magic."

Justin and his friends had stopped moving and chanting, and were just standing there now with their right arms extended towards the pentagram. "The rocks remember," they all said together. "You are not welcome here." It sounded creepy.

"Doesn't matter," Townsend sneered. "You can't keep it up forever. I can." He frowned in concentration, and the lines and — were those words? Whatever, the pentagram got slightly brighter.

" _Now_ we need to exorcise him," Newt said as he figured it out. He looked helplessly at the dead phone in his hands.

"Father Kieron!" Newt looked up to see Gaz hurrying over to where the priest was stirring. Newt trailed along. For a moment he thought Amy and Draco were too, but they went to check over that Andrew guy instead. The other one who had dug up an exorcism, Newt realised.

Father Kieron tried to sit up, gave a strangled scream and clutched at his arm. "Shit," Gaz said, then coloured "Sorry, I mean..."

"My arm," Father Kieron gritted out before Gaz could dig himself any deeper. Then he looked up and saw Townsend and the pentagram. "Oh Holy Lord," he said softly. "How in the world...?"

"The trees remember," Justin and friends said in that creepy unison, never taking their eyes off Townsend. "He is not welcome here."

Andrew came awake with a start. Newt couldn't see given where Draco was standing, but he was pretty sure he'd used magic. "Is it over?" Andrew whimpered, clutching at his head.

"Not quite," Amy said grimly.

Andrew blinked and looked at the angry trapped demon. "Oh. Oh!" He fumbled for his notebook and squinted at it "I can't focus," he complained.

"Concussion," Draco said quietly. "I don't know how to fix that."

Father Kieron shook his head as if to clear it. "Help me up," he said to Gaz.

"You're hurt," Gaz objected. "Just tell me what to do." Newt was surprised at how genuinely upset he sounded. He wasn't used to thinking of Gaz as having feelings.

"Gaz, this is my job," Father Kieron said gently. "A priest is supposed to guard his flock from evil, and I can't think of anything more evil than a demon."

Newt wasn't religious (though maybe he was going to have to think about that after all this), but he could appreciate the priest's determination. And maybe they could do something to help. As Gaz somewhat unwillingly helped Father Kieron to his feet, Newt turned to Draco. "Hey," he said, tapping the boy on the shoulder. "Can you fix his arm? You know, with magic?"

"I—" Draco looked like a deer in headlights, as if he hadn't expected Newt to notice all the spells he'd been throwing about. Father Kieron just looked confused.

"Magic wand," Newt said shortly. "Not subtle."

Draco pulled himself together. "I only know basic first aid," he said. "Cuts, bruises and the simple curses. I can't mend broken bones. I could set it, though?"

Father Kieron looked like he had about a million questions but knew there was no time for them. "Do it," he said. "Right now I'll take all the help I can get."

Newt watched in fascination as Draco muttered something and waved his wand in a complicated pattern. Bandages and splints started appearing out of thin air and wrapping themselves around Father Kieron's arm.

Townsend snorted disgustedly. "Whatever happened to 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' gay boy?" he said.

Father Kieron winced as the bandages tightened and a sling settled over his shoulders. "A poor translation as I'm sure you know," he told the demon. "And I think we've already established that God will hear anyone's prayer if it's sincerely made." He took a deep breath and presented his prayer book challengingly. " _Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus..._ "

Newt couldn't help but flinch at Townsend's screams. He had to grit his teeth and remind himself that this wasn't a person, and the only reason it hadn't killed all of them was luck and magic. Eli and Calvin might still die. Townsend couldn't seem to decide whether to threaten or plead, which perversely made it easier not to feel sorry for him. It. Whatever.

Father Kieron carried on reciting the exorcism stoically, regardless of what Townsend did. Newt saw him twitch when Townsend bellowed out, "Everyone will know about you," but his voice never wavered. Newt only knew it was all over when black smoke boiled out of Townsend's mouth with a scream Newt felt as much as heard. It made an abortive move to escape before being dragged downwards and sinking into the floor.

Townsend's body collapsed with a thud.

* * *

"Is he...?"

Gaz wasn't sure he wanted an answer to his unfinished question. He didn't really want any of the last few hours to be real, to be honest. He didn't want to wake up from a dream of kissing Newt to find he really had been kissing Newt. He didn't want to have discovered that magic was real. And he really, really didn't want to find out that his dad's best friend was a demon from hell.

Ex-best friend.

The glowing shape around Des faded out, and the six people standing round him relaxed. "Dead," one of them confirmed. "For quite a while it felt like. I guess those guys don't take good care of the bodies they possess." He sounded American, Gaz thought irrelevantly.

"Right," said another, a skinny teenager Gaz vaguely recognised from school. Oh yeah, Josh Ashworth. The guy who had accidentally caused Gaz's first talk with Father Kieron. "Justin, you're up. What do we need to do?"

"I need to triage," Justin said, "but Calvin's going to need serious help."

"Yeah," Lauren's sister Sasha said from where she was still keeping pressure on Calvin's wound. "Someone call an ambulance."

"Oh, I think we can do better than that," Josh said. He turned to Father Kieron. "Thank you, Father. Good thing you knew how to exorcise him."

"I have a good memory," Father Kieron replied. "They insisted on teaching us the basics in seminary, I just... I've always thought of being a priest as fighting spiritual battles. I never thought I'd meet a demon in the flesh."

"No one ever does," the American guy said sadly.

Too fucking right, Gaz wanted to say. He held his tongue though. He'd already sworn once in front of the priest and got away with it, he didn't want to push his luck. He still needed Father Kieron's help with... Oh shit, his dad was going to kill him.

"While I know better than to believe a demon," Father Kieron said, giving Gaz something other than his panic to focus on, "he did say some alarming things. I think some explanations are in order."

Josh nodded. "Fair enough," he said. "It's kind of a long story, but the seven of us are druids." His gesture took in Whiny Andrew.

"Nature worshippers?" Kieron asked, frowning.

"Worship's not the right word for it," Josh reassured him. "We work with the natural currents of magic in the world. There's nothing inherently religious about it, it just is."

"Josh, I hate to interrupt," Justin said from where he, Jake Dean and Sasha were kneeling by Calvin, "but I really need to get Calvin to the Grove ASAP."

Draco, the blond with the wand, pulled himself upright. "I can—" he began.

"You are out on your feet," Justin interrupted. "You need to rest before you apparate yourself, never mind anyone else."

The American guy sighed. "I'll give Harry a call," he said. Apparently this meant something to the other druids, who all looked at him in various degrees of surprise. "Hey, Willow wanted him to have us on speed dial, 'cause you know the fall-out from the Voldemort business isn't done yet."

"And you didn't mention this to the rest of us because...?" Josh asked pointedly.

"I forgot," the American said sheepishly.

"Less chat, more phoning," Justin said sharply. The American saluted him and pulled out his phone.

"Anybody else in immediate danger?" Josh asked.

Justin shook his head. "We need to keep Andrew and Fletch under observation, but that's it. You've got a clean break, Father," he continued, turning to Father Kieron. "It's set properly, I don't need to do any more right away. I'll see what I can do to help it along later. After that it's all just cuts and bruises."

"I've got bruises on my bruises," said Polly, the dark-haired girl who had been trading punches with Des.

"Can I move now?" Matthew McQueen asked. The black whatever-it-was that had nailed him to the floor had vanished when Des went up in smoke.

"There's nothing physically wrong with you," Justin told him, "but I'd like John Paul to have a look before you do anything. He's got the best eye for this sort of thing."

"Sure," John Paul said. "Ste, can I borrow you for..." He trailed off, eyes widening as something occurred to him. "Oh hell. Josh, I'm going to need you too. Sorry to interrupt, Kieron, but this might be an emergency." He pulled Josh and Ste aside and started talking to them rapidly.

"What about Eli?" Newt demanded. Gaz had no idea who or what he was talking about. The fact that Newt was staring at an empty spot on the floor next to Matthew wasn't encouraging. If Emo-boy was just getting worked up about his imaginary friend...

"Eli's not there," Justin said gently. Beside him, Jake looked at his foster brother sympathetically.

"What do you mean? He's lying right there, and he looks really bad."

"Newt," Jake said softly, "when was the last time you took your meds?" Gaz was genuinely shocked. Newt really was on medication? He really was schizo? That could explain so much. Had he drugged Gaz or something?

Newt drew a shaky breath. "I'm not seeing things," he insisted. Gaz didn't care how broken he sounded, it served him right. Newt had dome something to him, and Gaz was going to make sure everyone knew all his dirty little secrets.

"You know that's not true," Jake carried on in that same careful, soft voice. "You found Eli's body."

"But he's right there!" Newt was crying, and apparently Gaz did care how broken he was because this was too much. Fuck it, he thought, being a bastard was what his dad wanted from him. He reached out and put a hand on Newt's shoulder, silently offering support. On the other side of Newt, Lauren did the same.

"He is." John Paul's simple statement sent ripples round the room. "He may have died, but he's still lying there.

"Eli's a ghost."


	18. Four's A Crowd?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's dying. Lauren is terrifying. John Paul knows how Justin feels.

"Wow, you guys didn't mess around."

There were more people in the room all of a sudden, and Newt officially couldn't cope. Too much was happening too fast, and it was too unbelievable. Eli couldn't be a ghost, could he?

He knelt down carefully next to his best friend. "Eli?" he said, reaching out tentatively.

Eli groaned in pain. "I'm sorry, kiddo," he managed to say. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"Don't be stupid," Newt retorted. "You didn't—" He broke off in shock. He had tried to pat Eli's shoulder reassuringly, but his hand had gone straight through. He hadn't even felt anything. "It's true?" he asked faintly.

Eli nodded. "I never let you know how bad things had got," he said. "You were the only bright thing in my life, Newt, I didn't want any of that touching you. Then they found that family for you, and I couldn't... You weren't supposed to find me."

"But I did." Newt could remember it now, walking into Eli's room and seeing him hanging there. His screams had brought the adults running, but it had been too late. Much too late.

"When I woke up the next morning and you were standing there looking so worried, I thought I must have dreamed it all," he said.

Eli gave him a feeble smile. "I should have stayed away," he said. "I didn't know you could see me, no one else could. You told everyone."

"And they didn't believe me." In retrospect Newt could understand why, but at the time he'd been thirteen and still in shock. He hadn't accepted it when they had reminded him Eli was dead. Why would he, when he kept seeing him around?

"Anyone else would have told people what they wanted to hear," Eli said sadly, "but not you. You had to insist they were wrong, you stubborn bugger."

And they had drugged him. Newt couldn't remember much about that time. All he had was one image; Eli sitting by his bed, looking so miserable that Newt nearly started crying himself.

"You told me you'd run away," he said.

Eli nodded. "It was the only way I could think of to keep you from talking about seeing me." He gave Newt a pained smile. "Even then you nearly slipped up so many times. I... I got you into so much trouble, Newt. I'm so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"

Newt would have said yes in an instant, but he realised what Eli was doing. Eli was trying to square everything up so that he could die with a clean conscience. Newt would absolutely forgive him, but he wasn't ready to let go of his best friend yet.

He looked up, his eyes searching for John Paul McQueen. "Please, you've got to help him."

"We're working on it," John Paul said. His attempt at a smile was less than reassuring. "God, now I know how Justin feels."

"Talk it through," Josh said much more confidently. "Why is... Eli?" Newt nodded. "Why is Eli so much worse off than your brother?"

"Matthew has a body," John Paul said. "It protected his soul, at least a bit. Gave it a pattern to fall back on when it was wounded. Eli hasn't got that protection or that pattern. He's doing the spiritual equivalent of bleeding and it can't stop on its own."

"So he needs the kind of help Matthew has from his body to heal?" Josh asked.

John Paul nodded. "More or less," he said.

"Can we give him a body?" Josh asked. "Bind him to a ring or a rock or something?"

John Paul looked dubious. "It would stop him dying," he said, "but I don't think he'd heal right. It's the wrong pattern. It would be like trying to splint a broken bone with bent sticks."

"He'd end up more like a spirit of whatever it was than the ghost of a person," Josh mused. "How close to his original body does it have to be?"

"Um," John Paul said uncertainly. "Human? Male? I don't know if that would be enough, even."

"What about the person who's already in the body?" Ste asked. "Isn't that going to be a problem?"

"I don't like the idea of forcing possession on someone," John Paul said with a grimace.

"Oh, wait," Josh said. "If we..." Newt was fairly sure the rest of the sentence wasn't in English. He got the idea all the same; they might be able to save Eli by sticking him in someone.

"I'll do it," he said. The older boys stopped and looked at him. "Put him in me. I don't mind if he ends up in charge as long as he's alive. Er, not completely dead."

John Paul cocked his head and looked at him critically, but it was Ste who spoke. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. "We aren't guaranteeing anything here."

"You're a fine one to talk," Josh murmured, smiling gently. Ste elbowed him in the ribs.

"I'm sure," Newt declared. "Eli's my best friend, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him."

"You want to be careful saying things like that," Josh said, sobering suddenly. "Some day someone may try to hold you to it."

"It won't work," John Paul said before Newt could argue back. "You two already have a connection. He's anchored to you, that's what's keeping him here on earth. It would interfere with any binding we tried to do between you two."

"The only bright thing in my life," Eli murmured.

"OK, alternatives?" Josh said briskly. "I get the impression we haven't got much time here."

Newt looked at his friends. "Gaz?" he asked hopefully.

"What, seriously?" Gaz sneered. "You want me to play house for a ghost?"

"I want to stop him dying," Newt said honestly. "I know I don't have any right to ask anything of you given what's happened, but I need your help. He needs your help."

"It would work," John Paul added helpfully. "There's already some sort of low grade connection between you and Eli. We can work with that."

What sort of connection could Gaz possibly have with Eli, Newt wondered. It's not like he had known Eli when... back in the home. Unless Eli had done something stupid.

The idea occurred to Gaz at the same time, given how angry he looked. "Those weren't dreams, were they?" he said furiously. "He was already inside me, making me do what he wanted. He can go to hell for all I care."

"He's right," Eli broke in before Newt could react. "I used him. I just wanted, just once..." He broke off, grimacing in pain. "I don't deserve his help."

Newt couldn't stand it. "Please," he begged Gaz. "I'll do anything you want. Anything."

Gaz recoiled. "I'm not..." he stuttered. "I don't... That was all him."

"Are you sure of that?" Father Kieron asked softly. Newt hadn't noticed him approach them. "When you talked to me about your dreams, you didn't say anything about what was going on in them being wrong. You even admired the way that Newt wouldn't back down. I'm not condoning what happened to you, but maybe it gave you permission to accept what you were already feeling."

"Please," Newt said when Gaz seemed speechless. He stood to get level, moving slowly to give Gaz every chance to stop him. Whether he felt anything for Gaz or not, he needed Gaz to want this.

This kiss was as tentative and sweet as their previous kisses had been confrontational. Different again from kissing Lauren, but Newt liked it just as much. It wasn't better or worse, just different. It didn't matter whether it was a boy or a girl he was kissing, Newt thought, he liked both. It mattered that it was Gaz, a bully and a chancer... who was staring at him in something between awe and fear, and Newt couldn't sustain even a momentary flash of anger. Fuck it, he did have feelings for the guy.

"That..." Gaz managed to get out. He didn't seem to know what to say.

"Was hot," Lauren finished. Newt started guiltily and turned to see a considering look on her face. "You're going to do what Newt wants," she told Gaz confidently.

"I don't," Gaz began weakly. Lauren didn't give him the chance to finish. She leaned in and kissed him hard. Newt wasn't sure how he felt about that, especially when Gaz got over his shock and started kissing back. Two people Newt cared about very much kissing, it was... hot.

Fuck.

Lauren broke the kiss. "You're going to do what Newt wants," she repeated.

"Yeah," Gaz breathed. Then his eyes flicked to Newt, full of confusion.

"Good," Lauren said firmly, and leaned over and kissed Newt. It wasn't soft like their previous kisses. It didn't invite Newt to worship her. Instead it demanded his surrender, and he gave in without a thought. He wouldn't deny Lauren anything.

Untold eons later, Lauren let him go and stepped back. Newt glanced at Gaz to see him looking as glazed as Newt felt.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Lauren asked, arching an eyebrow at the others.

John Paul shook himself. "I really shouldn't be surprised like that anymore," he said to no one in particular.

In short order Newt found himself kneeling beside Eli again, guiding Gaz into place opposite him. John Paul fussed between them, adjusting their positions to some purpose only he understood, while Josh looked on pensively.

"They aren't balanced," Josh said suddenly.

"Ste and I can handle that," John Paul replied.

Josh shook his head. "You need to guide and Ste needs to anchor," he said, which apparently meant something to John Paul. "You won't have time to keep them under control. We need..." He paused and grinned. "We need Lauren."

"You what?" Lauren demanded. She sounded even more incredulous than Gaz had.

Ste's grin matched Josh's. "If you're going to tell me you can't keep them two in line, I'm not going to believe you," he said.

"Right, stand here," John Paul said distractedly. He tugged Lauren into place at Eli's head, not giving her a chance to object and making sure she had a hand each on Gaz and Newt. "If you feel either of them drift off, bring them back."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll know." John Paul bustled over to stand behind Gaz, while Ste moved to behind Newt. "We're ready," John Paul told Josh.

Josh nodded from his place at Eli's feet and turned to Father Kieron. "Father," he said seriously, "We're about to try something new and these are far from ideal circumstances. I'd feel happier if you said a prayer for us."

Father Kieron smiled at him. "Some of my colleagues would be horrified to be asked to bless magic," he said. "Still, every week we acknowledge that God made all things, visible and invisible." He closed his eyes, silent for a moment. Newt quickly ducked his head. He wasn't a believer, didn't have any time for the patriarchal stupidity the Church always pushed, but now really wasn't the time. He'd do anything that improved Eli's chances of survival, and keeping his mouth shut and looking at least a bit respectful wasn't so hard.

"Father God," the priest began, "bless these young men and women, and bless the work they do. Guide them in their endeavours, and bring them all safely home. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Newt mumbled an "Amen," as did most of the others. The firm response from Gaz surprised him. He looked up to see an expression of terrified certainty on Gaz's face. They were going to do this, Newt realised, and it was going to work.

Newt couldn't have said what happened in the ritual if his life depended on it. Josh, Ste and John Paul all spoke, he knew that much. He saw Eli dissolve into coloured mist and flow up and into Gaz, and more than anything else in the world he wanted to follow. Lauren wouldn't let him though, and Ste gave him the strength to stay put and still share his memories of Eli.

Then it was over, and he, Gaz and Lauren were all holding each other. Newt couldn't see Eli anymore, and the sense he'd had of him during the ritual was gone too. "Did it work?" he whispered.

Gaz nodded. "He loves you so much," he whispered back.

"Good thing Newt's falling for both of you," Lauren chuckled.

Newt would have protested, but he was pretty sure she was right.


	19. Family Unties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaz's Dad wants him home.

Kieron thought he was doing pretty well given how many utterly impossible things had been thrown at him in the last hour. Exorcising a demon — a ritual he had never expected to use in real life — had only been the start of it. Two young men and a young woman had shown up in response to Xander Harris's phone call. One of the young men had grabbed hold of Justin Burton and vanished, only to reappear moments later alone. Apparently Justin needed to be somewhere else to heal Calvin, and this Harry was being his ambulance service. In short order Justin, Jake, Xander, Calvin and Sasha had been spirited away.

While Harry transported people, the young woman — Hermione — had set off to persuade the neighbours that nothing unusual had happened. Kieron would have asked how she was going to explain away the fact that the front of the house was missing, but the other young man had pulled out a wand and within moments the house was repairing itself. "Ron's good with stonework," Draco had said before Harry had taken him and Amy Barnes home.

By the time John Paul and his friends had finished their ritual, the house looked exactly like it had before the fight started. Ron Weasley had introduced himself, and Kieron had tried to keep his amazement (and fear, to be honest) off his face when Ron casually mentioned that his family had been wizards for as long as anyone could remember. For such reality-bending power to have been walking the Earth all this time...

Ron himself seemed to be more interested in the way young Nikolai levitated his friend Fletch onto the newly repaired couch. "Is not seedling," Nikolai said when asked if he needed help. "Will not hit ceiling. Probably." Despite his casual words, Nikolai took great care to make sure his friend wasn't jostled. Kieron could appreciate that. He sat on one of the kitchen chairs and tried to pretend his broken arm wasn't killing him.

"This is crazy," Matthew said. He examined a chair that had been in three pieces a minute ago before sitting very gingerly on it.

"I know," Kieron agreed. "I never expected to fight against the forces of the Devil quite so literally."

"And magic," Matthew said. "My brother can do magic." He sounded troubled by the idea. Kieron couldn't blame him.

"So many people here can do real magic," he said, "and nobody else has a clue. Does this happen often?" he asked Andrew.

The young man gave him a slightly glassy look from the armchair he was sat in. "Not around here," he said. "Sometimes things happen, but that was more magic than I've seen in one place outside Draco's school."

"There's a school for magic?" Matthew said, alarmed.

"Andrew!" Josh said sharply before the concussed man could say any more. He looked apologetically at the rest of them. "It's supposed to be a secret," he explained. "Sorry Father, but the witch trials killed a lot of innocent wizards."

"They killed a lot of innocent non-wizards too," Kieron sighed. Not the Church's finest hour, in his opinion. It was impossible to tell now if real evil had been put down, but the price in innocent blood had been far too high. "It's a lesson for us all in how fear and paranoia can take control," he said.

"But you've been to this place?" Matthew asked his brother.

"Not exactly," John Paul hedged. "We visited a few months ago, but it wouldn't do us any good. Wizard magic doesn't work like druid magic."

"There are different types of magic?"

"It surprised me too," Ron said ruefully. "I'm a wizard and they're druids, and the ways we use magic aren't even close." He looked at Nikolai. "I guess you're a Wiccan?"

Kieron sat up. If he really had neo-pagans running around the place with magic, that was going to be a problem. He could split theological hairs over using power that was a part of God's creation, but actively worshipping other gods wasn't something he could even pretend to condone.

"What is 'Wiccan'?" Nikolai asked.

Ron shrugged and looked at Josh. Josh glanced at Kieron and winced, but explained anyway. "Wiccan magic seem to involve asking for power from gods or spirits or things like that."

"I say right words, make hands right shape, magic happens," Nikolai said. "There is no please and thank you. I am good Orthodox boy." He seemed a bit affronted at the idea, which reassured Kieron no end.

"That sounds more like a wizard," Ron said, frowning. "You don't use a wand, though."

"And his eyes glow," John Paul observed.

"Good point," Josh said, seeming to take charge. "So what exactly are you then?" he asked Nikolai.

"He's a dirty hold-out, that's what he is," Fletch said grumpily. He opened his eyes and gave Nikolai a half-hearted glare. "When were you going to tell me you could do magic?"

Nikolai raised an eyebrow. "Why would I tell you?"

"Maybe because I'm your best friend?" Fletch shot back. "Also, you can't keep a secret to save your life."

"I keep this one," Nikolai said smugly.

Fletch glowered. Josh looked interested. "So, another form of magic?" he asked. "We can put you through your paces when we get back home and see what we can figure out."

Ste gave him an alarmed look. "That's nice 'n all," he said, "but I have to get back to work. Assuming I still have a job."

"I'll come with you and explain it was an emergency," John Paul offered, levering himself upright. "Tony won't argue so much with me, he knows I'll set Jaqui on him."

Ste gave Josh a quick kiss and headed for the door. "Good luck figuring out what to do with the body," he said.

Josh grimaced. "What are we going to do with the body?" he asked as Ste and John Paul left. They all looked uncertainly at the corpse that had somehow been tidied into the corner of the room.

"We're going to give him a proper Christian burial," Kieron said firmly. Whoever Des Townsend had been before the demon took him over was owed that much at the very least. He'd figure out how to do that without earning the suspicions of the Dee Valley Police later. "And there's what we came about in the first place. What do we do about your father catching you and Newt kissing?" he asked Gaz.

"That wasn't me," Gaz protested.

"But it will be," Lauren said confidently before Newt could do more than look outraged. "He isn't going to like you kissing me either." She looked at him consideringly. "You should stay here," she declared.

Matthew snorted and, oddly, relaxed a bit. "I don't think Calvin will go for that," he said. "Besides, you aren't adults yet. If Gaz runs away from home, his father can just fetch him back."

"You mean he has to go back?" Newt demanded.

"I'm afraid so," Kieron confirmed. "We'd have to be able to prove his father was abusing him and get the police involved to do anything else right now."

"So we can't stop him from kicking the shit out of Gaz until after he's done it?" Lauren asked. Matthew and Kieron both nodded reluctantly. "That's stupid," she said.

"It's a protection for good parents," Kieron sighed. "It means no one can take away their children if they aren't doing anything wrong."

"Unless they aren't adults themselves," Matthew pointed out, "like with Mum. Her mother made her give me up."

"Is very interesting," Nikolai said insincerely, "but I take Jamie home, yes? He is to rest, and you are all talk, talk, talk."

"I'm not an invalid," Fletch protested.

"You had a nosebleed," Gaz pointed out.

Nikolai nodded. "Just before you break free of control and destroy coin he use. Seal with funny name," he corrected himself.

"The Nabraxis Seal?" Andrew gasped.

Josh scowled. "I told you you shouldn't have touched that thing," he said.

"What is it, or was it?" Kieron asked.

"It amplifies a demon's magical powers," Andrew said. He stared wide-eyed at Fletch. "If it was using the Seal to dominate you... How did you break free? That should have been impossible!"

"Jamie is stubborn bastard," Nikolai said proudly.

Fletch sat up and winced, but didn't lie back down again. "Either I got him out of my head or I was going to kill Nicky. He would have whined so much it wasn't worth it. I hate hypnosis," he added. Kieron didn't bother pointing out how illogical Fletch's reasoning was. Teenage boys wouldn't admit to giving a damn about each other under torture, though Kieron was fairly sure there was nothing more than friendship between those two.

"You go home, lie down," Nikolai insisted. "I make sure your head not explode."

"Alright, Mum," Fletch said sarcastically when it became clear no one was going to argue his side. He levered himself carefully to his feet, and smiled after a moment. "Hey, it's not so bad aside from the headache. I could—"

"Go home, Fletch," Josh said sternly.

"I was going to suggest stopping off at the _Dog_ on the way," Fletch said loftily.

Matthew snorted. "Because alcohol and pain killers are such a good combination," he snarked.

"Is OK," Nikolai told him. "I hide vodka."

"You're no help," Josh said. His glare bounced off both of the others.

"Try not to have too much fun without us," Fletch called. Nikolai rolled his eyes and dragged his friend over to the door.

Whatever Nikolai spat out in Russian when he opened the door didn't sound polite.

* * *

"Where is the little bastard?" the big man demanded.

Josh caught Ron's eye and nodded at the corpse in the corner. Whether or not the man was Gaz's father, him seeing Des Townsend's dead body couldn't end well. Fortunately Ron was quick on the uptake. By the time the man and his four burly friends had forced their was past Nikolai, there was a sickly-looking pot plant standing there rather than anything more incriminating. Josh was distracted for a moment wondering if his magic could do that. Probably not; he might be able to turn a corpse into a dead tree given enough time, but not something living.

"Nice to see you again, Geoff," Matthew said coolly. He had put himself in front of the big man, pointedly stopping him getting to the younger kids. Everyone was on their feet and looking wary now, even Father Kieron and Mr Wells, who were in no shape for a fight. Josh surreptitiously edged in front of them. He had no illusions about how much use he would be in this fight, but better he got some bruises than the others' injuries got aggravated.

The big man — Geoff Bennet — looked Matthew up and down. "Niall," he sneered, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find you here."

"Matthew," Matthew said firmly. "My name is Matthew McQueen. I'm surprised you hadn't caught up with that piece of news yet. Most people have known for months."

"That figures," Bennet said. "The McQueer brothers, both the same."

"We're really nothing like each other," Matthew said, coldly enough that Craig's theories about Matthew's original motives suddenly seemed a lot more plausible to Josh. "For instance, John Paul's nice."

Bennet smiled thinly. "Like I care," he said, and looked past Matthew to Gaz. "You're coming with me."

"Like hell," Gaz shot back.

"So you can have another go at smacking him around?" Lauren said, eyes blazing. "I don't think so."

"You shut up," Bennet told her, drawing himself up menacingly. "Gaz, now."

"He's staying," Newt said belligerently. He stepped in front of Gaz, fairly vibrating with anger.

"I'll pull this place down around his ears first," Bennet promised.

"Yeah, smash up a copper's home with his family in it," Gaz said scornfully. "That's really smart."

His father sneered again. "Who, me? I've been down the _Empress_ all evening, just ask anyone. Your precious copper will never prove I wasn't. Who'd believe someone like him anyway?"

They needed proof, Josh thought suddenly. Not to stop Bennet starting anything, but to show Gaz would be at risk if he went home. Bennet would resort to force eventually, he was sure of that. He could record that on his phone... except his phone was dead, fried by whatever the demon had done. He hadn't got round to figuring out how to protect it from magic like Willow had for Mr H. For all the Council phones, for that matter.

As Bennet and the kids shouted at each other, Josh leaned back and caught Mr Wells's eye. "Get your phone out," he murmured. "Record everything." Wells stared at him blankly for a moment until his brain kicked in and he scrambled to pull his phone out. Once he was satisfied Mr Wells was recording, Josh stepped forward, smiled and prepared to be the most annoying voice of reason ever.

"Let's all just calm down a moment," he said, plastering on a fake smile. "I know it must have been a bit of a shock finding your son with a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time, but there's no need to get so het up about it." He resolutely ignore the weird looks Fletch gave him.

"Who the fuck are you?" Bennet demanded.

"Josh Ashworth, sir. You might know my boyfriend, Ste Hay?" Fletch was sending him really weird looks now, and maybe Josh was sounding a bit much like his father. Still, most people seemed to find his dad really irritating when he was trying to be polite, so whatever worked.

"You're the cocksucker that turned the kid gay?"

"Hey," Father Kieron said sharply. "There's no call for language like that."

"Strictly speaking we're both bisexual," Josh said quickly. He was aiming for pedantic, but it probably came out more smug.

Bennet refused to be diverted from Father Kieron. "A predatory cocksucker _and_ the gay priest," he said, looking that them narrowly. "Oh yeah, Des told me all about you, Father. What have you done to my son?"

"He listened when I talked," Gaz said furiously. "You leave him out of this."

"It's important to talk these things out," Josh added helpfully.

"What's to talk about?" Newt sneered. "Gaz is with us. End of."

"The fuck he is," Bennet snarled and took a swing. Things quickly and satisfyingly descended into chaos. Newt staggered back, blood already dripping from his nose. Gaz surged forward to protect his boyfriend, and Bennet started in on him with his fists too. That seemed to be the cue for Bennet's mates to pile in, and within moments fights had broken out all over the room.

Josh found himself pushed aside by a man who had noticed Mr Wells was videoing the fight. "Give me that," the man demanded, grabbing Mr Wells's shirt front. Josh grabbed the man's free arm and held on for dear life. He was pretty useless in this sort of fight, but even he knew it wouldn't be good to let Mr Wells be punched on top of a concussion. It took the man a few moments to shake Josh off, by which time Ron had arrived to help. Ron wasn't much better than Josh, it turned out, but at least he managed to land a punch.

"What the hell is going on?" a new voice demanded.

All eyes turned to the door, where Calvin Valentine was standing. Well, leaning on Mr Harris while Sasha propped up a tired-looking Justin and Harry was all but carrying Jake. Considering that Calvin had been passing out from blood loss half an hour ago, Josh thought it was pretty damn impressive. It looked like Harry had even cleaned and mended his uniform.

"I'm fetching my kid home," Bennet said. He looked at his friends for confirmation. Aside from the one Ron and Josh had been keeping busy, they hadn't been faring so well. Polly's was on the ground gasping for breath, of course, but Matthew clearly had the upper hand and Fletch actually had his guy in an armlock while Nikolai was picking himself up off the floor and rubbing his jaw. Josh took a moment to shake his head at how easily his cousin had taken to fighting. Fletch had been nothing like 100%, but he'd taken on someone bigger and meaner than himself and won quickly. It was almost worrying.

"I'm not going," Gaz growled back. He had the beginnings of a beautiful shiner. That could only help his case.

Father Kieron seemed to think the same. "I'm afraid there is reason to believe Gaz would not be safe if he left with his father," he told Calvin formally. "The last few minutes have not been promising."

"That's a dirty lie," Bennet spat. "I'd never hurt my son." His face darkened when Lauren laughed at him, but he didn't rise to the bait. "You'd do better to ask why he's been talking to Gaz," he said, scowling at Father Kieron.

"Or you could take a look at the video of the last few minutes," Josh said brightly. Mr Wells held his phone up helpfully. The nearest thug made an abortive move for him, earning himself a glare from Ron. Mr Harris narrowed his eyes, which did not auger well for the guy's future.

Bennet levelled a long, dangerous look at Calvin. "You want to think very carefully about what you do next," he said quietly. "A word in the right ear and your career will be over." Calvin bristled and straightened. There probably wasn't much more Bennet could do to piss him off, Josh reckoned. The threat was real, though.

"Oh, I wouldn't go bothering the Chief Constable tomorrow," Harris said before Calvin could. "He's going to be way too busy fielding calls from my boss about this attempted assault on one of his most valued employees."

"What the fuck?" Bennet had more sense than to speak, but the thug who had actually been threatening Mr Wells didn't.

Harris smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, and for once he didn't seem to be trying to look harmless. "So you're going to tell me that you weren't trying to beat on my partner, who by the way has concussion, to get his phone? Is that it?" He held the guy's gaze for a long moment before switching back to Bennet.

"I hate to burst your bubble," he said in a hard, unforgiving voice, "but you aren't the scariest person in this room. And before you ask, neither am I."

There was a long moment of silence as Harris and Bennet stared at each other. Eventually Calvin broke it. "I think it might be best if you left now," he said. His tone was gentle, but his whole attitude was just begging Bennet to start something. It wasn't enough though, Josh could tell. Bennet thought he was just stymied for the moment, he still hadn't taken in that they were never going to roll over for him no matter what.

"Mr Bennet," he said sharply, dropping any pretence being nice about this. "Let me be completely clear. You are not going to mess around with Gaz, Newt, Lauren or anyone else. If I find out you have, and I will, you won't like the consequences."

"Are you threatening me?" Bennet asked incredulously.

"Yes." Simplicity, Josh had found, seem to be much more believable than any amount of blood-curdling threats.

It wasn't enough for Bennet, evidently. "I'm supposed to believe that you're the most dangerous person in the room?" he said scornfully.

"Only very occasionally," Josh answered, truthfully as far as he was concerned, "but most of the dangerous people will follow my lead." Mr Harris shifted, and Josh fixed him with a glare. "You do and you know it," he snapped.

Harris shrugged. "It's true," he admitted easily, "for some things Josh is my boss. For others it's this stuffy English guy who wouldn't think twice about ending you if he thought you were a danger."

Josh didn't give Bennet a chance to accuse Harris of threatening him. "If you fuck with Gaz," he said, deliberately using language at odds with his normal 'nice boy' nature, "you'll get me angry. That won't be nice. If you fuck with me, you'll annoy him." He pointed at Harris. "That won't be fun at all. If you fuck with him... people tend not to survive pissing off his friends. Am I clear?"

"You seriously—"

"Am. I. Clear?" Josh held Bennet's gaze, determined not to be the one who blinked first.

It worked. After a long moment Bennet turned towards the door. "We're going," he snapped.

"But—" one of his thugs began. Bennet cut him off impatiently.

"We're going," he repeated. He paused at the threshold to look back at Gaz, who was still glaring at him. "This isn't over," he said.

"Yes it is," Josh replied harshly. "I wasn't kidding about his friends."

Bennet probably wasn't going to take his word for it, he thought, despite his best efforts. They would have to get ready to hit back. That was kind of depressing really.


	20. Definitely Not A Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli settles in. Gaz's dad has another go. Josh wasn't bluffing.

The moment the door closed, Newt turned to Josh. "That was epic" he said admiringly.

Gaz sagged with relief and kind of stopped paying attention to what everyone else was saying. Now that his dad wasn't an immediate thread, everything sort of paled into insignificance compared to Eli.

As far as Gaz could tell, Eli had passed out. There had been vague, sluggish, confusing thoughts as the magic ritual had finished (and fucking hell, Gaz had been part of an actual magic ritual that had really done something), but they had faded into a general sense that someone was there. It was like knowing without looking that someone was walking beside him, or more like sleepwalking. It was fucking unsettling, but weirdly reassuring at the same time.

On top of that, Gaz would occasionally get hit by Eli's memories and Eli's emotions. The first time he had looked up at Newt, he had seen a string of snapshots of a younger version and felt the sheer adoration that went with them. There was no chance of mixing them up with his own feelings even if those hadn't been more like thinking that Newt wasn't stupid or ugly and kissing him wasn't utterly gross, and hadn't turned him into a limp-wristed lightweight either as his dad's new bruises were going to prove.

Fuck, his dad. Dad wasn't going to give up on this, no matter what anyone else thought. He'd keep coming until Gaz was either back and under his thumb or dead. He probably wanted Newt and Lauren taught a lesson too. Regardless, Gaz wasn't going to be able to go home again, win or lose. He tried to hate Eli for that, but he had felt the crushing despair that lead the guy to suicide and he just couldn't. Fucking hell, what was he supposed to do now?

Uh, yeah, maybe he shouldn't swear so much even in his head anymore.

He was jarred from his thoughts by Newt poking him. "Fuck off," he said automatically. Newt looked hurt. Gaz squashed the impulse to apologise to him.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "You're staying with Josh tonight," she informed Gaz. "They've got a guest room you can use while the McQueens sort something out."

"Why do I have to stay with them?" Gaz protested. "Can't I stay with you or Newt?"

"No and no," Calvin said firmly. "I know what'll happen if I leave you two together, and Frankie will think the same about you and Newt."

"You could at least ask her," Gaz said sulkily.

"You really want me to call her?" Jake asked, eyebrows raised. Gaz shared a look with Newt and grimaced. Frankie wouldn't take him in, no way, and asking would just tell her there was something to watch for.

Calvin eased himself into a chair, earning himself a worried look from Justin. "You're going to need to take it easy for a couple of days," Justin said. "We healed the wound, but you lost a lot of blood. It's going to take a while to replenish that."

"You healed me," Calvin marvelled wearily. "How... Justin, what just happened here?"

Justin looked at Josh, who looked like he was about to start a lecture. Gaz tuned out again. He didn't need another rehashing of the evening's events. He was more worried about whether Eli could see as much of Gaz's thoughts as Gaz could see of Eli's, and how long his dad would wait before trying something.

Eli didn't come to until the following morning. Gaz woke up in an unfamiliar room and panicked. He panicked some more when he felt something stir in his head. There was a brief sense of _What the fuck?_ and the sense of someone being there suddenly came info focus.

 _Eli?_ Gaz thought cautiously. He wasn't going to say anything out loud, he wasn't that stupid. He might be crazy for letting someone else live in his brain, but he wasn't going to look it.

It turned out Eli could 'hear' thoughts Gaz directed at him. _Uh, yeah,_ his mental voice came. _Hi. Wow, this is bloody weird._ He sounded tired and disoriented, which made sense.

 _You're telling me,_ Gaz replied. _I thought you'd be used to running around in my body by now._

_I didn't... I never apologised for that to you, did I?_

The hell of it was Gaz could tell he was sincere. It put a real damper on trying to be angry with the guy. _Yeah, well,_ he said, sighing mentally. _If you hadn't done it I'd never have had the guts to kiss him._

He hauled himself out of bed and started dressing. Yesterday's clothes and a borrowed shirt, lovely. Fuck, clothes. All of his stuff was at home. Gaz didn't have a lot, but he didn't even have a change of socks right now. How the hell was he going to deal with that?

 _What's wrong?_ Eli asked.

 _My stuff,_ Gaz thought, not particularly coherently. _It's all at home._

_You got keys?_

He had, thank f— God. Gaz broadcast his relief and finished getting dressed. He could sneak in when it was safe and retrieve what he needed. This time he'd take someone as a lookout, though.

Breakfast felt weird. There were too many people, but at the same time no adults. Josh, Ste and Polly were already up, though Ste hadn't bothered to put on more than boxers and a dressing gown and was yawning over a cup of coffee. Gaz barely had time to pour himself a bowl of cereal before a very grumpy-looking Fletch stumbled into the kitchen.

"Nicky kept waking me up to ask stupid questions," Fletch grumbled when Josh gave him an enquiring look.

"It's a good safety precaution with head injuries," Josh said. "I bet Mr Harris was doing the same to Mr Wells."

"Yeah, but Nicky was asking in Russian," Fletch replied. He added something unintelligible but aggrieved-sounding.

"You speak Russian?" Josh asked. He looked surprised.

Fletch froze. "Um, no?" he tried.

Ste gave Gaz a despairing look. "Their entire family are absolutely pants at lying," he said. "Come on, you've got half an hour to get fed and get to school."

School was... different. Gaz's mates clearly knew that something had happened and Gaz was "persona non grata" as Josh put it. They didn't have the guts to do anything when he turned up flanked by sixth-formers, not even ones as harmless-looking as Josh. They did have a go during lunch break, but by then Lauren and Newt were with him. Newt might be as intimidating as a little yappy dog, but Lauren had no trouble winning the verbal fights and they all knew Gaz could take them physically if they tried anything.

"Well that was pathetic," Lauren said as their would-be tormentors slunk away. "They couldn't even think of a good line about threesomes."

"I don't think they were expecting you to admit we're in one," Newt told her. He smiled fondly at both of them.

Lauren looked at Gaz consideringly. "I suppose technically we're a foursome," she mused.

_Oh hell no!_

"Congratulations," Gaz laughed, "Eli is officially terrified of you." The bell rang then and they headed back inside, Eli still spluttering denials in Gaz's head.

His dad made his move at the end of school. Gaz was grabbed the moment he stepped out of the gates, and judging from the cries of alarm so were Lauren and Newt. "Come with me and I won't hurt them," his father's voice hissed in his ear. Gaz stopped struggling. He wouldn't risk Lauren and, OK even without Eli's prodding he didn't really want Newt harmed either. _Can you do anything?_ he asked his semi-welcome passenger. _Maybe possess him or something?_

There was a brief moment of disorientation that left Gaz dizzy. _I don't think so,_ Eli replied, his mental voice tinged with panic. _I can't get it together enough to jump out of you. I'm sorry._

 _It's less than a day since you nearly died, don't sweat it,_ Gaz told him. He was carrying Eli around to let him heal, after all. He tried to project calm, though it probably wasn't all that convincing. There wasn't anything they could do right then. Little as he fancied his chances against his dad once they got home, waiting and praying was really his only option.

"If you thought we weren't going to keep an eye on those three, you were sadly mistaken." Josh was standing in front of the van Gaz knew belonged to one of his dad's cronies. He looked gloriously pissed off. He might not seem like much as answers to prayer went, but an awful lot of dangerous people seemed to defer to him so Gaz reckoned he counted.

As Josh raised his phone and pressed a button, Amy Barnes glided up beside him. Gaz had had the brief introduction to what a Vampire Slayer was and seen Polly lift weights Gaz couldn't budge an inch. Suddenly he felt a lot better about the situation. Even four on one, Dad and his mates couldn't take her.

"What are you going to do about it?" his dad asked, unaware of the trouble he was in. He tried to push towards the van, but Gaz dug his heels in.

"First, I'm going to ask you nicely to let the kids go," Josh said, "because apparently these things matter."

"And if I don't?" Dad sneered.

"Then we stop being nice."

It didn't look like much of a threat unless you knew better, and predictably his dad ignored it and started pushing forwards again. He seemed surprised when Amy moved quickly towards them, though he recovered enough to dodge the kick she aimed at his knee in passing. Unfortunately the iron grip he had on Gaz didn't slacken.

By the time Gaz turned enough to see, the heavy with Lauren was doubled over and groaning, clearly out of it. Amy glared at the thug holding Newt and growled, "Down!" For once in his life Newt did what he was told and dropped. Amy's high kick caught the surprised thug in the chest and knocked him into the wall. Gaz smiled coldly as he slid to the ground unconscious.

The final guy had a knife out and lunged as Amy whirled on him. Mistake. She dodged so easily she didn't look like she was trying, grabbed his extended arm and pulled. The surprised heavy overbalanced and couldn't do anything about it as Amy's elbow smashed into his nose. He went down in a spray of blood and stayed there.

"What the fuck?" Gaz heard his dad say. More importantly he felt his father's grip loosen in surprise. Pulling as hard as he could, Gaz wrenched free. He was already swinging as he turned to face.

Despite the shock, his dad managed to block the first blow, taking what would have been a jab to the solar plexus on the hip instead. Then Amy started coming towards them, and Gaz used the distraction to get a good shot in on his father's jaw. "Leave me alone," he yelled, punching away indiscriminately. "I'm never coming home, so just go away."

It took two pairs of hands pulling him back and Eli shouting in his head to calm the hell down to get Gaz to stop. "I think he got the message," Lauren said. She turned a jeering gaze on his dad, who just stood there like he couldn't believe what was happening.

"Are you OK?" Newt asked much more gently. Gaz could feel Eli's pleasure at getting Newt's attention, and couldn't pretend that he didn't enjoy it too.

"I just don't want to be him," he mumbled, faintly embarrassed now the fight was over.

"Yeah, that's not happening," Lauren said, and the certainty in her voice was what finally let Gaz get himself back under control.

"You could have waited for me," came a plaintive voice. Gaz turned to see Jamie Fletcher looking over one of the fallen goons. His pout was extremely unconvincing.

Josh glared at him. "You were injured, you aren't allowed to fight," he said.

Fletch rolled his eyes. "If they were really worried about my brains dribbling out my ears they wouldn't let me come to school. So what happens now?"

"Now we wait for the police," Josh said. He switched his glare back to Gaz's dad. "By now they'll have received complaints about intimidation, assault and of course this attempted abduction of minors. Oh, and that video of you trying to beat hell out of Gaz last night just went up on YouTube. Your friends in high places aren't going to want to be seen with you over this, and that's before the political pressure kicks in."

Gaz took grim satisfaction from the bewildered look on his dad's face. Dad was so used to everyone just rolling over for him, Gaz reckoned he'd take days to wrap his head around how completely he'd been beaten.

"This is impossible," his dad said numbly. "You're just children, you can't..." He trailed off weakly, looking at his groaning goons.

Fletch straightened up and smiled. Amy put her head in her hands. "Oh God," she said, "you just had to say that. Fletch!" she finished warningly.

Fletch's smile, if anything, got wider. "You mean," he said, "You'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologise for Fletch, but I doubt anyone would believe me. I certainly wouldn't.
> 
> Canonically in Hollyoaks, Des Townsend was a racist bigot playing nice as a schoolteacher, Barry Newton really was schizophrenic (and got some excellent storylines), and Eli was a figment of his imagination. Fletch did get thrown out by his father, but about a year later than this and as a result of getting hooked on heroin. Nikolai is 90% my fault and 10% something else; it's fun writing a Russian.


End file.
